Matthew Fort 

Alwaha, London

An incantation to Lebanese indulgence leaves Matthew Fort with a gleam in his eye
  
  



Address: Alwaha, London

I heard it through the grapevine. Alwaha is producing some really interesting Lebanese food. Lebanese food! The very phrase has rung like a clarion for me ever since I fell in love with it at the great Chez Marcelle.

Chez Marcelle was a restaurant of such unappealing aspect that I nearly didn't go in. Having gone in, I nearly never came out again. The cooking was a revelation - clean flavours, oomphy spicing, dead sexy in every department. It left the mouth and the man feeling fresh and fizzing. Since then ... well, let's just say, as with most things in life, there is more disappointment than there is fulfilment, so you can understand why I responded to the siren call of Alwaha, dragging Daphnis and Chloë in my wake.

Alwaha lies on the corner of Westbourne Grove and one of its side streets. Westbourne Grove is a curiosity. It manages to combine a scruffy, exotic loucheness with a series of restaurants unparalleled in London for their range and oddity. Greek, Chinese, caff and Malaysian, Indian and Austrian, Iranian and modern British (sic), all jostle hugger-mugger for custom.

Alwaha is at the respectable end of the spectrum. While perhaps not in the forefront of contemporary restaurant design, it certainly has greater appeal than Chez Marcelle. It shares the latter's taste for pine, but keeps it a modest, natural shade, rather than Marcelle's Day-glo orange. There's quite a lot of greenery, but the overall impression is smart, decent, serious, an impression confirmed by the prices.

Not that Alwaha is expensive. It's not dirt-cheap, certainly, but given the general price range in London these days there's not much to click your teeth at. I zeroed in on the set lunch at £18, which promised a range of hot and cold dishes for a first course, a mixed grill and a pudding. You might say that £18 for three courses doesn't strike you as being bargain-basement stuff. Nor is it, but there is enough food to eat yourself to a standstill, and of a standard that shames many places that charge twice as much.

The bill for the three of us was a princely £73.75, including a modest bottle of Chteau Kefraya - a Lebanese rosé of impeccable cut - coffees, waters, orange juices and cover charge, plus a kingly array of tabbouleh, warak inab, hummus shawarma, moutabal, fattoush, foul moukala, moussakat batinjan, batata harra, jawaneh meshwiyh, kibbah maklieh, kallaj bil jiben, not to mention my kebab and the exquisite, pistachio-stuffed, syrup-sodden pastries for pudding.

Don't the very names send drifts of the flavours of spices and herbs wafting through the brain? They are an incantation to indulgence. Somehow, vine leaves stuffed with rice, herbs and spices, fried aubergine with chickpeas, onions, aubergines and spices, and grilled chicken wings in garlic sauce don't have quite the same evocative magic.

Of course, names aren't everything. There's many a menu that seduces the eye and imagination, only to prove a severe disappointment when you get around to eating the dishes of choice. That does not apply to Alwaha. The place wasn't exactly full to bursting that lunch-time - there was only one other table occupied - but the kitchen wasn't sending out any tired old rubbish. Each dish carried the authentic hallmark of proper middle-eastern cooking - peppy spices, singing herbs, shining flavours, health and happiness in every mouthful, not a stale note, not a sloppy detail in evidence, even in the standard items. The hummus had an unctuous, velvet texture to it, and a subtle, slightly piquant flavour that slithered around the mouth. The tabbouleh sparkled, the proportion of parsley to burghul about 1,000,000:1, as it should be. The kallaj bin jiben is a kind of Lebanese pizza, small but packing a punch through the use of melted halloumi cheese. The kebabs were models of grilled meats. And so on and so on. Each dish had a list of virtues enough for an entire review.

That's why £73.85 - £44.75, if you strip out the non-food items - seems a reasonable sum to to me. So, instead of wishing that I was heading for a quick nap (my normal form, post-lunch), there was a spring in my step and a lively gleam about my eye. I was ready for anything, including second helpings.

 

Leave a Comment

Required fields are marked *

*

*