Ever since Yotam Ottolenghi introduced British home cooks to the delights of tahini, harissa and preserved lemons, Middle Eastern ingredients and flavours have become a mainstay of dinner parties across the UK. What was once a cuisine defined by hummus and kebabs has rapidly become one of our favourites, with fragrant baharat, sweet date syrups and lemony sumac going from unknown oddities to store cupboard staples.
While home cooks leaf through the pages of Ottolenghi’s latest when deciding what to prepare when entertaining, restaurants have showcased the delights of this vast region’s cuisine even more. London in particular is where you’ll find some of the best – the likes of Berber & Q, The Palomar, Arabica and Honey & Co have paved the way for accomplished, high-end Middle Eastern cooking in the best way possible.
The latest restaurant to join the stable of successful Middle Eastern restaurants is Bubala, just down the road from London’s Spitalfields Market. The most obvious thing that sets it apart from the rest is that it’s entirely vegetarian – no kibbeh or shawarma in sight – and that while the focus is on Middle Eastern flavours, there’s a healthy dose of Mediterranean, Israeli and Jewish (hence the name) influences in there too.