Levant

Food

We had a selection of meze for entrees, including:

• Baba Ghannuge - Grilled aubergine dip, tahina & lemon juice - really beautiful, nice and smokey, and the accompanying flat bread was excellent too
• Kibbeh lahme - Lamb and cracked wheat parcels filled with minced lamb, onions and pine nuts - a bit oily but full of flavour
• Samak mekleh - Deep fried baby squid with Red Pepper Dip - just like normal salt and pepper squid, but the red pepper dip was exquisite, really fresh and with subtle spicing that brought out the sweetness of the peppers.
• Soujok - Spicy Armenian sausage, tomatoes, garlic & parsley - like kebabs really
• Qasbet d’jaj - Sautéed chicken livers, pomegranate
  & crispy onion - a bit different and livened up with the pomegranate

We were pretty full already, as the entrees were generous. For mains we had:

• S’csou Darna - Braised lamb shoulder, slow cooked chicken & merguez sausage served with steamed couscous, vegetable broth, golden sultanas, chickpeas, harissa & garlic stew - they actually didn’t give us the stew, but we were really quite full already with the entrees and couldn’t be bothered asking for it. Actually, we had forgotten it was on the menu until the people next to us ordered the same thing and they got the stew. Oh yeah, and the lamb, beautifully cooked, melt in the mouth, the couscous was not too sweet, excellent dish
• Mixed grill - Kafta laham, kafta d’jaj, shish tawuk & laham meshwi on a skewer - a little bit boring, some of the meat was dry, while others were spiced heavily. Not bad but not great

And dessert was still to come, on a 3 tier dessert platter

• Sniwat Fawakih - Fresh fruit platter with orange blossom - at this point we were just trying to cut the fat with the fresh watermelon and grapes
• Shay Bel Naanaa Wal Halawiyatt - Mint tea with baklawa - both mint tea and baklawa were excellent
• pistachios - didn’t touch much of this, this platter would be great to accompany drinks
• Turkish delight - there were 3 flavours, and all were really yummy.

Overall, excellent standard and very generous.

Rating - 7.5

Atmosphere

We ate at a very odd time, 3pm. At first we weren’t sure if there was anyone dining. Surprisingly there were a couple of people there. The restaurant is situated in the basement level, but was huge. The waiter decided to sit us right next to a couple who were getting very intimate with each other. Apart from that and the fact that all the wait staff seem to be preparing for the dinner rush…it was weird. The ambience must be quite nice normally, with a nice bar area where you can have drinks. Normally they have belly dancers too…

Rating - 2

Service

I thought they could have put in more effort actually. It was hard to get any attention, and their blender was broken so they couldn’t make drinks?!?! Surely they would lose less money by going out and buying a new one.

Rating - 2.5

C-factor

We had the meat feast for £29.50 p.p, with a discount from toptable of course. We had so much food leftover, but the dessert was so nice, I was forcing myself to eat more at the end. Good food and good value, maybe if I came for dinner I would have had a much more enjoyable experience.

Rating - 1

Brownie Points - 13

Info

Jason Court off Wigmore Street
76 Wigmore Street
London
W1U 2SJ
Phone +44 (0) 20 7224 1111
Website