Shawarma Bar by Berber & Q

No matter how much we love our life in New York, London will always hold a supremely important place in our hearts. Coming back to East London is like returning to a food mecca which we know how to navigate perfectly, without making any mistakes, wasting any time, or taking any wrongs turns on the way to some of our favorite ever places to eat. This explains why having arrived in London at 2.10 on Thursday afternoon, by 2.30 we had taken the window seats at Berber and Q's new Shwarma Bar in Exmouth Market.

This tiny space slots right into the tasty street which is Exmouth Market. On this sunny day, Shawarma Bar's windows were flung wide open, a few tables and chairs scattered the pavement,  and colorful tiles decorated the inside, interrupted by leafy green plants, almost mirrored pendant lights, and metal legged bar stools and tables. Wonderfully late on a warm weekday lunchtime there was no sign of a queue – just a few seats at the bar and a couple of tables were filled with happy customers drinking the last sips of their wine and wiping up the final strains of tahini sauce left in a plethora of bowls. 

We came with the intention of having a small(ish) lunch, perhaps sharing a small portion of the eponymous shawarma. However when we got our hands on the menu, our self-control was abandoned. And thank goodness for that, because everything we tasted we wanted more and more of: it was all we could do to force ourselves to leave our seats in time to get to our next appointment.

I'm not sure I've ever been served a more simply spectacular, stunning dish than this plate covered with a wonderfully generous flower of labne which had been sprinkled, drizzled, doused, and dotted with green chillies, dill, lemon zest, pistachios, and plenty of spices. Served with warm challah bread, we scooped up mouthful after mouthful after mouthful until an incredibly clean plate remained.

The classic lamb shawarma is a dish of many components, which make for a riotously colorful tableful of food. Piling everything onto your plate, on top of a warm, thick pita bread, leads to mouthfuls rich with nutty tahini, smoky lamb, sweet pickles, spicy Harissa, fresh tomatoes, and warming chillies. With a side of spiced mejadra, topped with salty, crispy onions,  I was ready to take up residence in this tiny little restaurant for the rest of the week. Every spoonful I ate seemed to become tastier and tastier. It took a lot of effort to persuade me to stop considering moving back to London immediately so that this flavor-packed bar would be so much more local.

Shawarma Bar, 46 Exmouth Market, London, EC1R 4QE

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Moro

8.30pm. Tuesday night. Moro. 34-36 Exmouth Market.

An apéritif at Caravan to fill in the gap between work and dinner, as we waited for M and D to finish at the MW awards at Vintners Hall. Typically delicious and buzzing, it reaffirmed our thoughts that Caravan is the perfect place to go at all times of day.

A hop, skip and a jump past several other restaurants on this bustling street which has  become a foodie's haven, we arrived at Moro, commenting en route about how we have never managed to find a seat in Moro's little sister, Morito, who lives next door.

The front of house apologised as we entered that they were so busy and the table for us was so near to the kitchen. Rather than being an apology, for us cooking-obsessed four, this was a celebration. From our seats we could watch all the action in the open kitchen, which centres around a wonderfully-Halloween themed pumpkin, also known as an orange-tiled wood-fired oven. And yes, I did forget to take a photo of it, so if you want to see it you'll have to go and eat there yourself.

D took charge (as always), and ordered a delicious bottle of Portuguese white, apologising to the waitress for his appalling Portuguese accent. She replied, in a very northern accent,  that she was from Yorkshire, and hers was consequently none better. A friend was made (finally - good service), and the wine list was spoken in numbers from then on.

Small squares of bread, with a bottle of olive oil to refill the never-quite-big-enough ceramic bowl appeared, and were quickly demolished, soaking up the previously consumed drinks.

 

Typically of my family, we were not allowed to order the same things. Eating out is 'work', and so as many dishes as possible must be sampled. Fortunately, at Moro, this caused no problem and no argument. Beetroot soup; wild mushroom migas; octopus carpaccio on butter beans; Scottish scallops with oloroso sherry sauce. The octopus won first prize, but all were perfect: a beautiful mix of autumnal colours and flavours. Wood roasted pork; chicken with pumpkin purée and dukkah; lamb with jewelled pilav; sea bass with seafood rice and rocket. Equally sublime.

D isn't a big pudding eater, but even he couldn't resist a couple of mouthfuls of both the malaga and the rosewater and cardamom ice-creams. They looked so perfect, so simple, and yet so styled and were so unbelievably tasty.

Immaculate service, food I dream of, and brilliant design (and also run by a married couple who have the same name), Moro has to be one of the best London restaurants. With the most beautiful cookbooks to match.

Highlight: I don't know where to start

Lowlight: A couple of minutes too long a gap between the starter and the main (soon forgotten reminiscing now a couple of days later)

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