Nargile

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• What are these?

• Average price 2 courses:
   £7.50 (set lunch)
   £15 (evening meal)
• House wine: £11.95 per bottle

• High point: The sumptuous mezze selection
• Low point: Your eyes will be bigger than your belly
• Food served: Mon-Thu noon-2pm, 5.30-10.30pm; Fri/Sat noon-2pm, 5.30-11pm. Closed Sun
• Open since: 2000
• Also offers: Vegetarian options (at least 25% of menu)

The List's Eating & Drinking Guide 2008 is now in the shops.

This review is from the 2007 edition.

It's easy to walk past Nargile, tucked away as it is on the restaurant-heavy stretch that is North Hanover Street. Once you're ensconced within its warm environs, however, it's worth embracing the Middle Eastern pace of dining, setting aside a whole evening for your meal rather than squeezing in a bite between office and pub. For starters, it's difficult to see past the mezze, a table-load of dishes to be shared between a minimum of two people. While the selection varies nightly, starters can include hummus, borek (filo pastries stuffed with feta), sucuk (lightly spiced sausage), tuna and chickpea salad, all strongly flavoured and aromatic, served with warm pitta bread. There's a strong vegetarian selection, including sweet-sour biber dolmasi (peppers stuffed with onion, tomato, mushroom, olives and almonds), while the house specialities are prepared using good quality, locally sourced meat. These include the intensely flavoured kars kebabi (rolled lamb stuffed with pâté and char-grilled) and tender biberli kuzu izgara (marinated lamb cubes in a rich passata, rosemary and wine sauce), served with buttery pilau rice or moist couscous. If you've a tiny space to fill, try a traditional Turkish dessert such as light, crunchy baklava washed down with soothing apple tea.