Restaurant Magazine: Mezze momentum
Out tomorrow (4 June), the cover feature looks at the rise of Middle Eastern food in restaurants, which are catching up on a trend already established in domestic kitchens with the help of cookbooks by the likes of Israeli food writer and restaurateur Yotam Ottolenghi, as well as Greg and Lucy Malouf and even Jamie Oliver.
“Many restaurant and food trends take their lead from home cooking, which – in turn – encourages more people to cook these foods at home,” says Ottolenghi. “It’s all part of the same circle, whether a trend starts in the city or the other way around.”
The article argues that while in the past restaurants offering this type of cuisine were very ethnic, therefore appealing to a small tranche of the population, new entrants to the market are targeting a broader spectrum of diners, investing in central locations, branding and PR, and making their food more approachable for a Western audience.
Middle Eastern food could even have its share of the branded market in the future, with ever-growing demand for this healthy alternative. It feels as though we’re the underdogs but I’m confident the next 10 years will see huge growth,” says Tony Kitous – the Lebanese chef restaurateur behind Comptoir Libanais. “From a casual-dining perspective it has the perfect mix of attributes – it’s healthy, varied, vegetarian-friendly, affordable and great for sharing. There’s no reason why there can’t be a Lebanese equivalent of Pizza Express or Pret A Manger.”
When it comes to Greek food, the existing offer has been largely influence by Cyprus and the Levant– a geographical and cultural term encompassing Cyprus, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and part of southern Turkey – due to the fact that a lot of Greek immigrant in the UK have been Greek Cypriots. But this is changing, with a number of new Greek restaurants eliminating these influences.
“Greek is one of the few Mediterranean cuisines that hasn’t been fully explored in London, and indeed the rest of the country,” says The Real Greek founder Theodore Kyriakou. “There are lots of Greek restaurants in the UK but the majority of them aren’t serving Greek food because they’re run by Greek Cypriots.”
To read the feature in full, pick up the June issue of Restaurant Magazine, out tomorrow.
Also in June’s issue of Restaurant Magazine:
- Clare Lattin, the owner of Soho’s Ducksoup, talks about her love of natural wine, juggling a PR career with being a restaurateur and the dramatic relocation of Rawduck, which reopened last month on Hackney’s Richmond Road, in Table for Two.
- Gaucho’s more accessible little brother CAU is placed under the microscope in the Business Profile.
- Pearls of Wisdom: Ryan Clift, the British-born chef who ran Vue de Monde in Melbourne for eight and half years before setting up the Tippling Club in Singapore talks about pairing drinks with food, serving £30 cocktails and making cauliflower cheese using sound waves.
The June issue of Restaurant Magazine is out tomorrow. To subscribe, click here, or view the digital edition here.
