Nandine, Camberwell

Another week, another fantastic new restaurant in Camberwell. I try not to moan too much on this site about the fact that certain areas of town seem overly saturated with great places to eat, while others have to wait decades between worthwhile new options, but it's hard not to be wildly jealous of the residents of Camberwell who have such a selection on their doorstep they could conceivably eat somewhere different and good every night of the month without having to leave SE5.

The latest addition to Church Street, fitting quite comfortably into the spot recently vacated by Mike & Ollie (opposite FM Mangal, a few doors down from Silk Road and Camberwell Arms FFS), is Nandine, a modern Kurdish restaurant. The menu at Nandine is that unbeatable combination of mostly familiar and wonderfully offal-forward ingredients treated in exciting and unfamiliar (at least to anyone who isn't already familiar with Kurdish cuisine, which definitely includes myself) ways. So although you may not recognise words like Tapsi, Tirshak, Kubba, Dandok and Jipa, you might - as I did - read descriptions such as "Pan-seared chicken heart with Kurdish Riha chilli sauce, garnished with watercress and pomegranate" and allow yourself to become very excited indeed.

First to arrive though, was turnip. And if you think I'm playing down the description of this dish for dramatic effect, you'd be right. Because Shelim e Kulaû is one of the most surprising and delightful dishes I've eaten in the last couple of years. Sort of a cross between sweet potato and turnip, so sweet and soft but earthy and rich, came dressed in a remarkable black tea and mulberry molasses mixture that nimbly danced a line between sweet and sour, herby and fruity - partly strangely familiar and partly completely new. But the stroke of genius was a sprinkling of smoked sea salt on top, which created a whole other level of flavour profile, like eating salted caramel in vegetable form. We were told this is a traditional Kurdish street snack that the kids eat on the way home from school. Lucky kids.

Tirshyat was a bowl of house pickles, which arrived with the warning "careful with your lighter clothing, they stain". Which is both a useful bit of advice and also a nice neat way of demonstrating how lovingly home made they were. Cauliflower, carrots and cabbage were all expertly balanced, not too sweet and not too vinegar-y, but predictably my favourite were the miniature pickled chillies which had a lovely bite and packed quite a punch of heat.

Kinger were little deep-fried balls of potato, caramelised onion and Kurdish wild foraged artichoke roots, and if you're wondering how a restaurant in Camberwell gets hold of wild Kurdish artichoke then you're not the only one. Turns out that certain key ingredients (the artichoke, and the wild pistachios for the dessert) are sent over by her family back in the Middle East, so not only is the food at Nandine excellent but you have a very good chance of coming across an ingredient literally not available anywhere else in the Western hemisphere.

Chicken hearts were also on the menu, so obviously they had to be ordered. Chilfra had wonderfully tender little morsels of offal, with just enough bite without being chewy, in a herby chilli sauce studded with mint and pomegranate seeds. Perhaps if I'm going to be brutally honest this dish was closer in style to the kind of thing I'd had before, but the fact this stood out as being more familiar just shows you how unique and exciting everything else had been.

At first glance, this tray of lamb kebab may seem familiar - ordinary, even. But this is an artifice that lasts only until you take your first bite, because believe me there is absolutely nothing ordinary about the way these things are constructed. Instead of the more usual homogenous dense mince, the texture of these Lula kebabs is a mixture of lamb flank and mutton, with - we were told - a specific type of fat from the outside of the mutton shoulder that loosens and enriches the meat to a texture so soft and light it's apparently a skill to not have them fall apart on the grill. The result is a "kebab" closer in form to a kind of rustic grilled mousse, a dark salty crust encasing a fluffy, gamey filling that's so dangerously easy to eat they can almost be inhaled. Incredible stuff.

I had also, of course, to order the stuffed lamb tripe - Jipa, which was every bit as lovely as I'd hoped. Soft, wobbly bits of fat alongside firmer - but not chewy - tripe, stuffed with fragrant cinnamon rice and almonds, and all in a smooth bone broth, it was another offal masterclass. To provide texture to contrast with the main ingredients they'd cleverly deep-fried strips of tripe into offal scratchings, which would have been a nice little snack by themselves.

After having polished off all of the above - the food at Nandine, despite looking unfamiliar and intense on paper, is remarkably easy to eat - it's testament to the quality of this homemade Qazwan baklava that this, too, didn't last long. As I mentioned before, the pistachios on top are foraged from the wild and sent over by owner Pary Baban's family back home, and came on top of a silky smooth milk pudding and folds of delicate filo pastry. Like everything that had come before, it was inventive, rewarding, and that beguiling mix of unique yet eerily familiar.

There can be no greater compliment to Nandine that I don't think there's anywhere else like it in London, and if there is then I need to know about it. It takes a lot to surprise and beguile a jaded London food blogger in 2024, and yet the team at Nandine have somehow come up with a restaurant concept at once fiercely distinctive and authentic while flattering with just enough that's familiar to allow you to enjoy it to the fullest. It's one thing to introduce an unfamiliar cuisine to a new audience, but to do it so lovingly and successfully requires real skill and a genuine gift for hospitality. Nandine has all that going for it and more, and judging by the crowds packing into this buzzy little spot on a cold Wednesday night, it's already struck a chord. Another great place to eat in Camberwell, then. I'm not jealous, honest.

9/10

I was a friend's +1 to this invited meal, and we didn't see a bill. From a brief tot-up of our dinner though I think the bill would have come to around £50 a head with plenty to drink, so pretty reasonable.