Berber & Q Shawarma Bar | Slow Roasted Dishes in Exmouth Market
Shawarma.
It’s a perfect anagram of ‘A-ha! Swarm!’
The relevance of which will become clear later. Trust us.
For now, let’s all just focus on the fact that it’s the centrepiece dish at Berber & Q Shawarma Bar – beloved by Avengers, Middle Easterners, and very-near-Easterners (in Haggerston, to be precise) alike, it’s essentially a delicious, verrrry slow roasted farmyard animal thrown into a pita with equally lovely herbs, spices, sauces, and veggies.
Dropped neatly into the middle of Exmouth Market, the restaurant itself sticks with the rough, unfinished-chic veneer of the B&Q original, with rusted Middle Eastern street signs on the walls, distressed wooden tables, Moroccan tiles lining the floors, and huge bi-fold windows looking out on to the market.
The real star though, is the grill sitting in the open kitchen. It’s here that the shawarma happens, with slow-roast lamb and rotisserie chicken being the stars of the show. You’ll get them on a plate (or in a lentil/rice bowl) with your grilled pita so you can ‘wrap it yourself’ with sides like blackened aubergine, confit okra & braised green beans – then douse it with sauces including their housemade ‘Yemenite Dynamite’, tahina, or toum.
After that, if you’re in the mood for something sweet, and well as a completely novel experience, you can snag a rose water milk pudding.
And speaking of novel experiences, the drinks menu is hardly run-of-the-mill either; they have cardamon old fashioneds, green tea gimlets (green tea vodka, pear liqueur & elderflower) as well as a generous selection of wines, and low & no alcohol options.
Now if only we could find a word to describe what people will do all over this place…
…a ha! Swarm!
NOTE: Berber & Q Shawarma Bar is open for lunch and dinner, Tuesday-Sunday. You can book a table right here.
Berber & Q Shawarma Bar | 46 Exmouth Market, EC1R 4QE
Looking for more top places to eat? Check out the best restaurants in every London neighbourhood…
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Carpe Diem!