The halal trouble with Mediterranean dining
Two London restaurants are attempting to make Greek and Italian cuisines accessible to Muslim diners — but are their efforts successful?
On high streets across the UK, the number of restaurants and takeaways serving halal food has grown significantly over recent years. From curry houses to Turkish ocakbasis and an array of fast-food staples, you rarely have to look far for something to eat in our cities and larger towns. Still, I don’t think I’m alone in my rapidly diminishing enthusiasm for social-media-hyped smash burgers, hot-honey chicken tenders and mixed grills that arrive suspended from vertical skewers.
Even in a city as diverse as London, I’m often left wanting more choice. As I’ve written about in this column, frequent visits to South Africa — a non-Muslim country with a very inclusive culinary scene — have shown me how exciting and varied halal dining can be. A couple of years ago, though, I took a work trip to Singapore that was similarly revelatory.
One memorable team dinner was held at Blu Kouzina, a Greek restaurant in the upmarket Dempsey area. In the UK, Greek menus are often pork-heavy and the few potentially viable chicken, lamb or beef dishes are not an option, either, leaving me limited to seafood and fish. Everything there, though, was fully halal. I found myself in deliciously uncharted territory, sharing sumptuous grill platters, perfectly charred lamb chops and melt-in-the-mouth kebabs, with no dish off limits. I can still taste the keftedes and the salty saganaki cheese topped with fig sauce.
A touch further west on the culinary map, Italian food is usually similarly problematic, leaving many halal diners to experience it via vegetarian pastas, pizzas and seafood dishes. In Manchester, Birmingham and London, a number of restaurants bill themselves as “Italian”, but they tend to lean away from authenticity and more into adaptations designed for South Asian palates. Now, I’m as big a fan of spicy spaghetti as anyone, but sometimes it would be nice to have the real thing.
Related content
A few weeks ago, while late-night browsing TikTok food videos, I kept coming across two “must visit” restaurants from the Pachamama group: a Greek spot named Zēphyr in Notting Hill and its sexy, younger Italian sibling Nina in Marylebone. Buried in the hashtags I saw the words “halal food” and decided to verify for myself. Emails and Instagram messages were sent and a response came back quickly. All meat halal! No pork served! I made my reservation immediately.
Located on the bustling Portobello Road in west London, Zephyr offers a short but sweet menu with dinner reservations sparsely available. On my lunchtime visit, we ordered the fresh pita (£4) to accompany what I considered to be a mandatory tzatziki (£9), fava bean mezze (£9) and spicy feta dip (£10).
The smell of the freshly charred bread, doused generously with olive oil and oregano, wafted enticingly across the table. The spicy feta dip had the expected cheesy tang and left a welcome burn at the back of the throat, the fava bean dip was topped with caramelised shallots providing a subtly sweet edge, while the tzatziki was fine, but ultimately forgettable.
Our mains included grilled boneless chicken (£36) in a citrus-infused olive oil sauce. Chicken can often be a safe but boring option, yet at Zephyr it was a standout: tender, well seasoned and the grill left its mark on the beautifully crisp, flavoursome skin. The sauce was also great — decadent and rich, with a refreshing citrus zing. Lamb cutlets (£38) were simply seasoned with salt and oregano and cooked to a still juicy medium-well as standard. While they were enjoyable, I wouldn’t rush back for them.
Then came the second showstopper: the soutzoukakia – spiced minced beef with cumin yoghurt and spicy tomato harissa (£24). I’m not sure how authentically Greek this dish is, but it works brilliantly. The closest thing I can think of is a dressed up Turkish İskender kebab and that’s something I’d come back for alone.
The dessert options, however, lacked excitement. Baklava rolls, chocolate mosaic bites and olive oil cheesecake were on the menu, however we ordered the loukoumades on the recommendation of the waiter. Like a Greek doughnut, they were served with a coffee dulce de leche. Simply prepared, perfectly fine, yet utterly predictable, their £13 price tag seemed expensive and unjustified.
Next, I visited Nina’s — lunch again, because securing dinner reservations is no easy task, thanks to the numerous food vloggers who have salivated over its lamb chops with burnt lime and chicken milanese. Our meal kicked off with a radicchio salad, which I hoped would come with crisp walnuts and sweet pear slices, but turned out to be just a bowl of bitter leaves in olive oil. At £13, it wasn’t a great start. Then came the lamb chops. Sadly, while the cook was solid, they were nowhere near as well executed as Zephyr’s, lacking the depth and seasoning. At £38 for three, the price was hard to stomach, too.
Related content
Still, I was disappointed that the only beef or lamb pasta dishe on the menu was a beef shin ragu cooked in red wine, which made it impossible for me to order. By that point, a lot was riding on the much-hyped chicken Milanese (£38). The crisp, breaded fillet came in a large portion and was served with a rich parmesan butter. It was, however, far too thick, dry and unremarkable.
At that moment, I began to feel well and truly hoodwinked by the whole food influencer racket. I am usually pretty good at sifting through the hype, but the promise of halal Mediterranean food of a kind that is rarely available in the UK had been enough to bypass my cynicism. Fortunately, the stracciatella burnt cheesecake (£14) at Nina’s offered a moment of redemption, laced with salty cheese and chunks of chocolate that came together to form a genuinely memorable dessert.
As much as I enjoyed Zephyr and after the debacle at Nina’s, I’ve recently found myself truly appreciating the seafood options I usually end up deferring to when eating at Greek and Italian restaurants. Shrimp saganaki, grilled octopus, prawn linguine, fried sardines. In fact, I’ve realised that I’ve not been missing out after all.
