Mediterranean

Arabica Bar and Kitchen is a restaurant that serves food from the Levant (Mediterranean countries – Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Armenia and Turkey) in Borough Market. The restaurant is modern and despite the food sometimes being quite similar to the food at your usual Maroush, it has a more casual and modern atmosphere. You can either sit inside or outside, where you can watch people eating their Borough Market food whilst slowly walking from stall to stall. Arabica Bar and Kitchen serves breakfast from 8.30 to 11.30, then takes a small break and restarts serving food from 12.00.

This was a wonderful discovery my boyfriend and I made totally by coincidence. I went to Pekcham for the first time in my life as my boyfriend’s university friend who had been in the Master chef final was doing a “pop up” of Thai barbecue and I was super keen to try it. We went to the bar in Peckam where this Thai barbecue was taking place only to find out that the place was totally overloaded by orders and just to take our order we had to wait an hour. As I was starving I decided not to wait for this and try to find alternative food, which initially for me seemed quite hard to do in Peckham. However, on our way to this Thai barbecue we had passed what looked like a nice, small and buzzing restaurant - Peckham Refreshment Rooms – and so we decided to go back there to try it out and have dinner there instead.

Apero means an “aperatif” and is an alcoholic drink served before a meal and it is also a Mediterranean restaurant in the basement of the Ampersand Hotel next to South Kensington tube station. I have to say I did not really try their Mediterranean food as I went there for brunch with my girlfriends and the dishes there looked like typical brunch dishes, nothing more Mediterranean. I am not really sure how having a Mediterranean dinner would work there as the atmosphere and décor in Apero is casual, with wooden chairs, bricks and tiles, and it looks like your typical brunch restaurant. The main chef is Chris Golding.

Many people love Ottolenghi delis and as you can’t book a table there I guess the Israeli born chef Yotam Ottolenghi was always under pressure to open a restaurant that would offer the chance to book a table and have the amazing Ottolenghi type of food in a more classy environment. Mr Ottolenghi opened Nopi in Soho last year to address this and Nopi serves small dishes to share with “robust, sunny flavours, typically from the Middle-east and Asia”. The menu is great, as it offers 4 small dishes (olive size dishes), 4 main courses and then a wide range of tapas/ starter size dishes that you are meant to share, 8 vegetable tapas, 4 fish tapas and 4 meat tapas that each cost £10 on average.  The number of delicious vegetarian dishes on the menu means means that if you are a vegetarian you will have an amazing and very varied meal in Nopi.