Kismet, Borough Market

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!

Mangal 2, Dalston

Fans of London restaurants have, despite everything, had a great deal to get excited about over the last few weeks. As the post-covid landscape continues to shift and shuffle, and amidst the smattering of genuinely sad closures and the continuing stress of the "pingdemic", a few genuine surprises and delights have cropped up. Some I've featured on this blog, and that ventures as diverse as Temaki, Bingham Riverhouse and INO Gastrobar have landed so successfully in such difficult times is testament to London's relentless capacity to reinvent and reenergise.

But sometimes a restaurant story crops up from such an unlikely corner of the city that you have to keep checking you're not going mad or aren't unwittingly part of some kind of elaborate reality TV scam. Mangal 2 was, until quite recently, a perfectly decent and fairly traditional ocakbasi, one of many that line Stoke Newington High Street serving tarama, sucuk, lamb chops and flatbread, fairly efficiently and for not very much money. I liked it, but then I've never really found an ocakbasi I didn't like, and the only thing that set Mangal 2 apart from, say, Bos Cirrik or Umut 2000 (both steps away) was the fact that on any given night you stood a fairly good chance of eating at the next table from eccentric art duo Gilbert and George, who had made it their local.

But during lockdown(s), something very strange happened at Mangal 2. Owners/brothers Ferhat (front of house and irrascible Twitter personality) and Sertaç (new-wave Anatolian chef with a year in foodie mecca Copenhagen under his belt) Dirik, having decided that running a restaurant during a global pandemic wasn't already enough of a challenge, and running the risk of completely flummoxing their traditional customer base (not least Gilbert and George), quietly relaunched their modest little Dalston spot as a exciting modern Turkish bistro serving a short, bold menu of carefully crafted and exquisitely presented dishes that completely redefine what Turkish food means in London.

Don't believe me? I don't blame you - I could hardly believe it myself - but stop me when you see something you don't immediately want to eat:

Sourdough Pide with Cultured Keymak Butter
Cold Grilled Onion Salad
Friggitelli Peppers
Cull Yaw Kofte
House Hummus
Brown Crab Sarma with a Langoustine Emulsion Grilled Quail

(Nothing yet? OK I'll continue)

Grilled Aubergine with a Buttermilk and Aleppo Glaze
Mushroom Manti Dumplings, Confit Tomato and Yoghurt
Chicken Thigh Shish
Yaprak Doner
Lamb Sweetbreads with Pomegranete Molasses
Cull Yaw Chop

(Still happily eat everything? Same here.)

Grilled Octopus with Butter Beans
Line-Caught Mackerel
Plaice with Garlic Kaymak Butter

...OK, OK, I'll stop. But you can see my issue when presented with the above - if you have even the most passing interest in live-fire Turkish cuisine, or let's face it, food generally, choosing a sensible amount of dishes from this mini masterpiece of a menu is an absolutely Herculanean task, and one, in the end, we failed miserably at. But let me at least explain to you why.

House pickles arrived before anything else, a couple of bits of nice crunchy turnip (I think) and soft, sweet gherkin. A nod to the Turkish past but with their feet firmly in the Nordic-flavoured present, they were a modest indicator of what was to come.

"Pide" they coyly called this beautiful thing, though it was unlike anything bearing that name I'd come across in London or elsewhere, ever. Charred from a searing hot oven, risen like a Yorkshire pudding and soaked in excellent olive oil, it was a masterclass in bread work, and a dollop of funky, salty "kaymak" butter added another touch of that Nordic/Turkish crossover charm.

Onion salad had also been treated to a healthy time over the coals, and as well as being dressed with various interesting herbs and spices boasted a significant kick from chilli flakes, something which only revealed itself after I'd already had a couple of large mouthfuls. Was a nice surprise, though.

So far, so great. But things were about to get a lot more exciting with the arrival of the "sarma", a parcel of brown crab and rice wrapped in vine leaf which would have been soaked in buttery seafood flavours and troublingly addictive even without the addition of "langoustine emulsion", a kind of seafood mayonnaise, swirled on top. The fact that this dish involves two of my favourite things in the world, and not only did not disappoint but somehow was even greater than I imagined it would be, should tell you everything you need to know. Astonishing stuff.

From here on, everything that arrived on our table with nothing short of magical. Firstly this cull yaw kofte, which announced its presence with an aroma so enchantingly gamey and complex that it was worth ordering just to have the opportunity to be near it. Of course, to eat it was to be even further bewitched - these extraordinary animals which I've spoken about before on this blog are raised by Matt Chatfield on his farm in Cornwall and though I don't know a great deal about the mystical methods he uses to turn older sheep that would otherwise have been culled (hence the name) into one of Western Europe's greatest meat products of any kind (this is not hyperbole, seriously try some), all I do know is that anywhere serving it knows a thing or two about great ingredients.

Manti dumplings had a delicate thin casing and rich, powerfully-flavoured mushroom filling and came served with a lovely tomato chutney of some kind ("confit" on the menu) and some yoghurt, hot with garlic. This is one of those dishes, vibrant and bright, with each element working in total harmony, that's so easy to eat and so attractively constructed that it sort of washes over you, a soothing balm of tasteful summer flavour.

And then the sweetbreads. Oh, lordy the sweetbreads. Gleaming gems of meaty offal coated in glossy pomegranate molasses that you wrapped up in shiso leaves and ate a few precious morsels at a time, these were just about the finest and most expertly dressed lamb glands I can remember having anywhere - in fact, I'm fairly confident they're the best you can find in London and if anyone finds any better I'll need to make a special journey there too.

Even an ezme salad, the one vaguely recognisable item from the Mangal 2 Before Times, seemed a cut above, seasoned nicely and with a good texture.

At this point, all the food we'd ordered had arrived and had been comprehensively demolished. But barely a 2nd glance was needed to my dining companion that we weren't prepared to end the evening here, not by a long way, and so we ordered firstly the quail, a carefully-cooked thing coated in a fascinating dry rub of who knows how many different kinds of herbs and spices...

...and secondly, of course, more cull yaw, because if there's one thing any evening needs it's more cull yaw. Here was a whole chop, a steal at £16, which ran from pure fat at one end which melted in the mouth like gamey butter, to pink slices of chargrilled meat at the other, the flavour of which I struggle to describe without using (and re-using) words like "intense", "complex" and "completely bloody otherworldly". I feel the same way about cull yaw as I do about late season grouse - there's that strong sense of the environment the animal has come from translating directly into the flavours in the meat, and of a healthy life lived well.

There was, finally, also a dessert. Tahini tart was the first time I'd had the sesame paste outside of a savoury dish but it made absolute sense here, topped with a lovely rich hazelnut cream. Anywhere else this would have been a highlight, here it was merely a booknote to one of the most extraordinary meals I've had in the capital in recent years.

So yes, as you may have gathered by now, it's fair to say I'm very much in favour of the revamped Mangal 2. Ignoring the extraordinary back story and simply taken at face value as a new modern Turkish bistro, the fierce intelligence of the sourcing and cooking and innovation on the menu would have still had me giddy with delight, a genuinely new and exciting addition to the capital. But that the Dirik brothers have risked everything - their traditional customer base, their livelihoods in a pandemic - in a brazen attempt to reinvent and relaunch their family business into something that looks boldly forward while keeping an eye on tradition, in an experiment that let's face it could have just as easily backfired as found a new and appreciative audience well, that's just even more to admire. For this monumental achievement, in this year of all years, they should be exceedingly proud. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to book another table.

10/10

Yosma, Marylebone

So many great innovations create their own market. I remember hearing about the concept of the Apple iPad before it launched, and immediately dismissing it - why would I need an oversized iPhone? How would that thing fit in my pocket? Wouldn't I feel a bit stupid carrying it around? And then it arrives and you try it and suddenly it all makes sense. "If I asked people what they wanted", another tech pioneer Henry Ford never said, "they'll just say 'a faster horse'".

So I didn't think I needed Yosma. I liked Turkish cuisine in London exactly how it was, thank you very much, from the ocakbasi grills of Stoke Newington and charcoal pits of Green Lanes to the mangals of South London, I like my pomegranete and grilled onion salad and my hummus and flatbread and strange pink tarama and, of course, lamb chops and kofte kebabs fresh from the coals, and why would you want anything more? If it ain't broke, and all that.

Well, it turns out I was wrong. Completely and utterly wrong. But it took a little while to realise how wrong I was, as my first visit to Yosma revealed nothing too far from convention. This chunky, accurately-seasoned house hummus, for example - excellent hummus, certainly, the match of any else I'd tried in London. But it was just hummus, and I know where I am with hummus. It came with some white bread, dusted with herbs and oil and I knocked it all back quite happily. I like hummus.

And then these lamb chops, in a wonderful light lemon-herb marinade, cooked to perfect pink inside and with the barest touch of smoke and char from the Josper, they were - again - the platonic ideal of a lamb chop dish, utterly faultless and a delight to eat. But I know where I am with lamb chops. I like lamb chops.

Clearly, Yosma were doing many things right but in the way these things sometimes go, my faultless-yet-familiar lunch soon faded into memory and the place dropped off my radar for a few months. And perhaps that would have been it if not for the steady stream of positive chatter about from friends and critics, ranging from "extremely positive" to "utterly-blown-away" and ensuring a return visit was all but inevitable. Never underestimate the power of FOMO - Fear Of Missing Out.

One wet evening in March, then, I sat down with a friend in the window of Yosma and ordered a selection of dishes that made a complete mockery of my conviction that Turkish food in London had reached some kind of endgame. For example, the above dish of pastırma, cured beef. Treating this densely-flavoured bit of charcuterie like an Italian would carpaccio is a touch of genius, and in fact makes more sense with cured rather than raw beef as the excellent olive oil, capers and scattered nduja-like chilli paste stood up to and highlighted the pastırma rather than masking it. Really, very clever stuff.

Hamsi, fried anchovies, were either some kind of freakish boneless variety or had been cooked using techniques new to modern science, as we were able to eat the whole animals, nose-to-tail, without a single annoying pin-bone tickling our throats. Which was enough of a novelty even apart from their wonderful earthy flavour, and the intriguing tarator (walnut and garlic sauce) to dip them in.

Yosma apparently make their own sucuk sausages, and to fantastic effect. The texture of loose mince, the strong beefy flavours and punchy chilli oil is like nothing I've tried before, probably best described as a cross between pork pie filling and chorizo (only with beef, obviously), and something that is surely unique to Yosma. At least, I don't know anyone else making their own sucuk. And as if that wasn't enough, they came with what I'll have to describe as perfect roast potatoes, thick of crust and smooth of interior, turning the dish into a kind of mini Turkish Sunday roast.

Mantı, Turkish dumplings, could perhaps have done with a little more filling but still went down very easily, with their good al-dente casings and yoghurt & chilli dressing. You can see the effort that goes into these by wandering over to the open kitchens, where there are often hundreds of them, all painstakingly made by hand, lined up in neat rows on trays ready for the water. It doesn't necessarily follow that anyone going to the trouble making their own dumplings is better than anywhere that doesn't, except it does generally seem to be the case, doesn't it?

Chicken wings were perhaps the only instance where Yosma's otherwise masterful command of seasoning and spicing let them down. They were beautifully cooked wings, and clearly high quality chicken with good, strong, big bones, but I'm afraid the breadcrumb coating was quite salty, which distracted from what would otherwise been a top bit of poultry work.

Yosma brush their flatbread with lamb fat - well, why wouldn't you - and so I hardly need to tell you it tastes absolutely incredible. It's just a light touch of the fat, enough for it to taste vaguely meaty but not be overwhelming, and a scattering of sesame seeds and interesting herbs further add depth. You can tell a lot about a place by its house bread, about their attention to detail and attitude to hospitality generally. Yosma passes this particular test - and so many others - with flying colours.

I am rarely enjoying myself so much after this much food that I even consider dessert, so it's a testament to how well everything had gone that I was determined to try as much of the menu as possible. Yosma is one of those rare places that approach everything with such style and intelligence that it makes you think it's impossible to order badly; that everything on the (reasonably large) menu is probably worth trying. That's certainly true of this Kűnefe dessert, sort of like a large baklava (sugar and pistachio and shredded wheat and, er, mozzarella cheese) which is as unusual (in London at least) as it is enjoyable, the syrupy bits of crunchy pastry mixing remarkably well with the ropes of stringy cheese.

I should also say a special word on the service, which was as good as anywhere I've been in recent times. Our waiter was engaging, attentive and great company, knowing everything about every inch of the menu and an expert in Turkish cuisine generally. My bill carries the name "Catalin" so if that was him, very well done indeed - an utter masterclass in front of house work. Awards, or at least greater recognition, surely beckon.

So, yes, it turns out I was wrong. Completely and utterly wrong. Fabulously wrong. I did need Yosma, and so do you, and so does London. This is Turkish cuisine reinvented for a new generation, never self-consciously experimental or deliberately obscure, but innovative in the best possible way - fresh and exciting but still accessible. Where dishes are familiar, such as the lamb chops or hummus, they're simply the very best they can be with no extra fuss. And when they try their hand at crafting traditional Turkish dishes using the finest local ingredients, the results - such as those extraordinary sucuk - are blinding. Yosma is the modern Turkish restaurant I didn't know I needed and didn't ask for. And yet here it is anyway, and now all of a sudden I can't live without it.

9/10

19 Numara Bos Cirrik I, Dalston

On the one hand, this is going to be yet another blog post about a fantastic, ludicrously cheap Ocakbasi grill, and to that end, I apologise if it feels like you've heard it all before. Londoners are spoiled for decent Turkish restaurants in a way that almost no other cuisine can manage - some are better than others, of course, and I imagine it is at least theoretically possible to have a bad Turkish if you try hard enough, but there are just so many good ones scattered around certain areas of Dalston and Shoreditch that you'd have to be very unlucky to come away disappointed. In one tiny stretch of the Stoke Newington Road there is the brilliant and ever popular Mangal 2, the unpronounceable but apparently very highly regarded Istanbul Iskembecisi, and the cryptically titled 19 Numara Bos Cirrik I, where I spent a thoroughly enjoyable Monday evening.


You know there is some real talent in a kitchen when even something as straightforward as house hummus draws gasps of approval. It was, in fact, the finest example of this humble dish I've had in a very long time - light and smooth, seasoned perfectly and astonishingly fresh. A generous round of lahmacun (sort of a Turkish pizza for want of a better description) was straight out of the oven and lovely and crisp, and cost a pathetic £2; amazing value. And even a plate of yoghurt and cucumber did its job commendably well, cooling the soft house bread and tasting bright and summery.


The only problem I had with the house salad "Esme" was that I wasn't sure how to eat it. Chopped and crushed and ground down so much (I watched them do it) it had turned into a kind of Turkish gazpacho, and the flat plate it came on was hugely impractical. But, needless to say, it was seasoned well, tasted great, and was a lovely colour from the tomatoes and fresh parsley. And while perhaps not quite up there with the version at FM Mangal in Camberwell (and I doubt anything ever could be), the pomegranate and onion pickle was still hugely addictive. The Esme was £4 and the onion pickle was free. Crazy.



Deep fried I think rather than grilled, the halloumi wasn't 19NBC's greatest creation, but tempered with the onion pickle it had crunch and enough salty cheesy goodness to make it worth the effort. And around this time yet another free salad arrived, just a straightforward mix of tomatoes, lettuce, onion and cabbage dressed in olive oil and parsley but still, they went to the effort of making it for us and didn't even charge. The generosity of spirit is heartwarming.



Lamb behti kebabs came served on house bread soaked up the meat juices and soft brown rice. The kebabs themselves were top-drawer, moist and rich and seasoned perfectly, and there was a huge amount of meat here for £9.50. Part of the reason our bill was so low could have been that this was the only significant meat dish we ordered, but as it was midsummer (and 19NBC has no air conditioning, so be warned) we didn't really feel like anything too heavy.


With two beers, a Ribena (don't ask) and as much iced tap water as you could want, the bill came to just £40 for 4 people. All four of us left stuffed, happy and with kebab juice staining our clothing (well OK that might have just been me) and with nothing, other than perhaps the raging heat, to complain about. It is hard not to get complacent when you're tucking into another great Turkish grill and paying a pittance for it, but the astonishing quality and value of so many of these places should not distract for a second from the effort and skill that must go into running them. 19 Numara Bos Cirrik I is Yet Another Great Ocakbasi, and I will never get bored of eating there.

8/10