Kebab Queen

4 Mercer Walk, London WC2H 9FA

Don’t go to Kebab Queen if you don’t like surprises. Don’t go if you don’t enjoy tasting menus. Don’t go if you are a veggie. Don’t go if sitting at a communal table isn’t your thing. Don’t go if the thought of edible disinfectant freaks you out. Don’t go if you consider cutlery and crockery to be an integral part of the dining experience. Don’t go if you don’t like being bombarded with reservation reminders.

Other than that, you should definitely, absolutely, go.

It’s hard to know what to say about Kebab Queen. On the one hand, it absolutely deserves championing, offering, as it did, my best meal of 2019. It is a brilliant place, with so much to get excited about. On the other hand, a great part of the restaurant’s appeal are its many surprises -from where it is, to the food on offer, and the way that it served. To foretell these surprises would, I think, diminish the experience of anyone who goes having read such a review.

So, what can I tell you? Well, for a start, it’s small – only 10 seats, which can be – and, I suspect, do get – booked up to 40 days in advance. Twice, though, I have put myself on the waiting list for a specific evening, and on each occasion, spaces have come up, so maybe it’s not quite as difficult to bag a spot as it first appears. However, whilst it’s ideal for a party of 2, it probably does not work as well for any other configuration. Everyone sits at one, rather special, counter. You can ask for a menu of what you’re about to eat, but they prefer to keep it a surprise (and give you the menu after the meal, if requested). There are six courses, five savoury, and a desert. The chef himself (Manu, ex- Le Gavroche no less) “plates” the food in front of you and serves you. He is very charming and engaging, as are all the staff.

The courses that we ate were built around foie gras, mackerel, monkfish, duck, hogget and finally pumpkin. But that doesn’t tell half the story. Each dish contains a number of elements, and it is in these complimentary flavours where much of the culinary magic is to be found. The chicken “jus” thickened to the point of unctuous wonder by the gelatine from the monkfish bone marrow; the little duck parfait lokma (doughnuts); the hogget bao, the harissa-devilled egg accompanying the mackerel – Marina O’Loughlin was right: I made “involuntary noises” when I tasted each of these things.   

Three hours pass very quickly, indeed.  At the Fat Duck, they want a minimum of £325 per head for innovative, high quality, “story-telling” food. At Kebab Queen they charge £60 per head for something similar. Some will still feel that is expensive; I think it is laughably good value for some of the best cooking, and most fun, to be had in a restaurant.   

Read enough reviews of Kebab Queen, and it is clear how difficult people find it to classify this restaurant: it is variously described as “disinhibiting and comical”, “a performance”, “hipster” (The Sun’s outrage is particularly entertaining!), “fine dining twist on kebabs”, “hugely fun”, and “straddling the fine line between a serious dining experience and all out parody”. It is, perhaps, all of these things in part, but not completely any of them. It is utterly unique. You should go see for yourselves.

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