Every new generation of Londoner has to go through the phase of being bewildered and bedazzled by the various lavish stalls and speciality producers at Borough Market, shell out a small fortune for a selection of wildly unrelated items they're entirely unable to turn into a cohesive dinner, and spend a weekend or two queuing for a chorizo roll (or whatever the snack du jour is at any particular moment) before eventually declaring the Market "just for the tourists these days". It's a rite of passage, like getting ripped off at a Brick Lane curry house, or finally finding the correct exit at Piccadilly Circus tube.
And we can moan all we like (another truly London pastime) but there's many of us still hold a soft spot in our hearts for the Market. Yes, at the weekends it's wildly overpopulated, you can't really do any proper food shopping there and if I see one more chocolate-covered strawberry I'll want to scream, but the fact is, scattered around the place amongst the crowds and the noise are undoubtedly some of the best restaurants in the capital. Just off the top of my head there's OMA and Agora, Padella, Camille, Elliot's, Bancone, Rambutan, Kolae, Akara, Mei Mei, Bao, Barrafina, Parrillan - surely there's no other 4.5 acres (thank you Google) of land in Western Europe so blessed with incredible places to eat.
And now there's one more. Tucked above the Globe pub in a couple of bijou dining rooms oozing with character (if not elbow room) is Kismet, a "Meyhane" restaurant (think Ottoman-empire izakaya, serving raki instead of sake) run by a youthful, enthusiastic bunch of people who really seem to know what they're doing. I've yet to visit Turkey, but the first thing my friend noticed as we squeezed onto our table was the little diner-style napkin dispenser, a vital part of the Turkish restaurant experience, I was assured.
Of the food, the first to arrive was atom, a strained yoghurt dish soaked in butter that couldn't have been any better to compliment the house flatbread. Perhaps I could have done with a bit more of the advertised chilli hit - I could see the little red flakes but couldn't really taste them - but then this is almost certainly just a personal preference thing.
Also begging to be scooped up by more of that crunchy, salty bread (why is homemade bread such a rarity in Turkish/Cypriot restaurants in London? Even some of the bigger name mangal places in Dalston I've seen them opening packets of precooked stuff) is a wonderful house tarama, rich and rewarding and silky smooth enough by itself but topped with a generous layer of puréed cod's roe, which lifted it onto another level.
Oh but we were just getting started. I have yet to meet a piece of fried liver I didn't like, so I am perhaps not the best person to objectively rate this yaprak ciğer dish, but I can't remember eating a better bit of offal in years. The liver itself was soft and bouncy with not a hint of dryness - closer to the texture of sweetbreads than anything else. A delicate breadcrumbed coating was greaseless and crisp with a gorgeous golden colour. It was also seasoned perfectly, and combined with a fresh onion salad made it the kind of thing you'll be talking to your friends about for days after. If you go to Kismet, get the liver and onions.
Also brilliant were the şeftali kebabi, bouncy little parcels of minced pork (I think) and lamb (definitely) held together in caul fat and grilled to gentle smokey perfection without being too charred or bitter. Lots of places in London do şeftali, and some do them very well indeed. I've rarely found any as accomplished as these, and the layer of soft flatbread quietly soaking up the juices from the resting meat was a wonderful little bonus.
Finally there were two sides, one our choice and one theirs. Our pick was nothing more radical than a house green salad, but the measure of any good restaurant is a seemingly effortless capacity to turn the mundane into the exceptional. So yes maybe this was just a little plate of lettuce and onions but the dressing was salty and vinegary and oily in all the right amounts and it was a genuine delight to eat.
We were persuaded, though, to also try their patates kızartması, not because we were particularly hungry or even that curious to try even this thrusting young restaurant's take on fried potatoes, but because our waiter insisted they were his favourite dish on the menu and that were something close to a must-order. What arrived was a sad, flabby little tray of pallid potato shapes so lacking in the life and fire and finesse shown in the rest of the menu it was like they came from a different restaurant entirely. Many years ago, I attempted to make chips at home. I cooked them too long at too low a temperature, used the wrong kind of oil and the wrong type of potatoes, and they still tasted better than these things. I have no idea why they're on the menu.
Anyway, so Kismet isn't perfect. But I'd be tempted to write off the potatoes as the exception that proves the rule, a rare blind spot in a kitchen that's otherwise doing everything right and then some, not least because the knowledge that the same kitchen can make those potatoes and everything else we tried is giving me a migraine. The fact is, nobody else in town can cook liver like that, or şeftali like that, and tarama and atom like that, and make stunning bread like that, and for all those reasons this little spot is a new London must-visit restaurant, equally delighting long-time foodie cynics as well as whichever tourists happen to be passing through that day.
And speaking of tourists, judging by the gaggle waiting their turn to take a photo next to the rear door of the Globe, Bridget Jones' picture-book London still lives strong in the international collective conscience. Only in movie world could a junior assistant at a small London publishing house afford a 1-bedroom flat in Borough Market, even in the early noughties, but who cares - this is an idealised London, and Kismet is tantalisingly close to an ideal restaurant, and in this weird arrangement the two sit very happily together as ambassadors for the city. Above a Victorian pub in an old food market, magic happens, on and off the screen.
9/10
This wasn't my invite, but we didn't see the bill. Would have been something like £50/head though, which is incredibly reasonable.
EDIT: I'm reliably informed that the kebabs above were not şeftali but kofte, which had been swapped in that day and the menu not updated. Still very nice, anyway, and all my same compliments still apply!
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