Six of the best eats in 2024
Kurdish supermarket shawarma, processed cheese pide and elegant Sudanese classics have all been big hits over the past year
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Opening my Instagram account lately, I’ve been met with story after story detailing people’s Spotify Wrapped. For some, this online phenomenon appears to have become almost as important as the new year itself. Personally, food is more my jam, but there is no application I know of doing a Meals Wrapped, so here it is: my top eats of 2024.
1. Azadi, Peterborough
Azadi is a Kurdish Iraqi supermarket, butcher, bakery and takeaway on Lincoln Road that is open till 3am every day. In the classic style found around the Middle East, its grilled meats are sold by the kilogram and three large skewers stand at the front of the store, cooking doner, lamb and chicken shawarma.
The lamb shawarma is the standout, served in house-baked naan or samoon — a crisp, airy diamond-shaped Iraqi bread — and topped with a choice of salad, including pickled cabbage, tomato, cucumber, lettuce and onions. The meat has a perfect char and can be accompanied by any of the 11 sauces on offer, from traditional amba, tamarind and homemade green chilli to the usual industrially produced sweet chilli, barbecue and garlic. For £3.50, it has to be one of the UK’s best-value sandwiches, night or day.
2. Eastern Oven, Leeds
In November, I wrote a piece for Hyphen about Syrian food in Yorkshire. Since then, I’ve not stopped thinking about the Puck cheese and honey pide (£4) from Eastern Oven. For this signature dish, highly processed, salty cheese spread is generously slathered over a fresh, blind-baked pide base, which is served with a squeezy bottle of honey on the side. For something so simple, it’s extraordinary. Is it sweet? Is it savoury? Who cares — it’s absolutely delicious.
In the restaurant world, hype is both common and rarely deserved. Berenjak’s contemporary take on traditional Persian food, however, is worthy of all of the gushing reviews and online attention. When I visited its Borough branch, the joojeh kabab tond was a revelatory experience.
I have eaten this dish — barbecued poussin in chilli, garlic and sumac — many times over many years. This version, at £29, was a game changer, thanks to the addition of the aci biber salçasi, a deep red, spicy pepper paste that is a staple in Turkish kitchens. That blend of flavours, coupled with truly expert grill technique, produces something so wondrously charred, juicy and downright tasty that you’ll end up doubting all the chicken you’ve eaten before and all that will follow.
When I returned to London in 2020 after a couple of years of living in Istanbul, two of the things I missed most were a solid cup of Turkish tea (çay) and the ability to get a great slice of cake at 10pm — ideally from Hafiz Mustafa. Obviously, when I learned that this Istanbul institution was opening its first UK branch in Knightsbridge in September, I found myself counting down the days. I was worried about hiked-up prices and quality issues, but very happy to be proven wrong. The çay is strong and rich at £5 for a large glass and the cakes are sumptuous. My favourite is forest fruit chocolate — layers of strawberries, raspberries and blueberries in a decadent cream, nestled between layers of moist sponge. Given the location and the fact that each slice is easily enough for two, £9.50 a slice is great value too.
For the past year, the chicken tikka paratha wrap at Chaii Master (£5) has been my culinary comfort zone. While the recent proliferation of chai-based eateries promising popular street eats has been, in my experience, overwhelmingly underwhelming, Chaii Master isn’t. Its parathas are pure perfection: flaky but with enough structural integrity to hold plentiful fillings. My go-to involves beautifully flavoured chicken tikka topped with mozzarella cheese — controversial, but it works — chopped cucumber and spicy mint chutney. Ideally, it should be eaten with a cup of what has become my favourite chai in London. Along with the chapli kebab wrap, this feels like the kind of quick but incredibly satisfying bite you want and need before boarding a cross-country train at Lahore Junction railway station.
6. Toteil, Acton
This Sudanese restaurant in Acton, west London has been making waves since its April launch. Starters include refined versions of staple dishes, including tamiya (falafel) and sambusa, fried fresh to order and served with a lethal green shatta. The agashe mains — meat marinated in ground peanut powder and chilli, cumin and paprika, served with rice, salad and shatta — are spectacular. My tip is the thinly sliced beef (£10), which somehow manages to be crispy, succulent and soft, all at the same time. The peanut coating is also like nothing I’ve ever tasted before.
With food served on large communal metal trays and a warm, convivial vibe, eating at Toteil feels like visiting a friend’s house for dinner. Whatever you order, you can’t go wrong ending the meal with chai laban (creamy spiced milky tea) and a homemade basbousa semolina cake, drenched in orange blossom-scented sugar syrup.
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