123 Queenstown Road, London SW8 (020 7622 0555). Meal for two, including drinks and service: £70
Back in the late 1980s, when I joined this newspaper the first time round, the offices were on Queenstown Road in Battersea, a short distance from what I understood to be one of London’s great restaurants. L’Arlequin had a frontage the colour of expensive olives, and two Michelin stars, when barely anywhere had even heard of one. I passed it on the bus to and from work every day and always turned to stare, as if it was a stranger I had the hots for. I suppose it was. I was desperate to know what went on in there. I was certain that over its threshold lay a certain kind of adulthood that I had yet to access.
Eventually I learned that a lot of what went on in there involved the then boss classes of this newspaper working the expenses. They were different bosses and different owners and different expenses; if a foreign correspondent had been diligent and good and smelled lightly of risk, it was there that their superiors might take them to be rewarded with small amounts of gratitude and large amounts of Christian Delteil’s neo-classical cooking.
One of those was Julie Flint, the legendary foreign correspondent who reported from Beirut throughout the war-ravaged 80s. She still has a home there, from where she reports on everywhere from Sudan to Colombia and all points in between, with an undimmed fury. Just seeing Julie walk across the newsroom floor, on one of her flying visits to London, was a thrill for a young journalist paddling in the paper’s shallow end. She had short, cropped hair, presumably because it saved time, a canvas bag full of unknowable but invaluable items, and the look of someone who had seen things – seeing things being the ultimate job of any reporter.
Recently, Julie got in touch to say that a new Lebanese restaurant had opened up on the Queenstown Road, and that it had served her one of the best fattoush salads she had ever eaten. I blinked at this. Julie Flint? The ultimate old Beirut hand, was telling me she had eaten superlative Lebanese food? In Battersea? This had to be worth a try. I looked up the address. Lo and behold: it was the one-time location of L’Arlequin.
I may once have dreamed of being granted access to that address but, as Dalila, it is of far more use to me now than it ever was before. The space, with its arch-linked dining rooms, is not especially lovely. The walls are hung with paintings that, charitably, one would say, were chosen by someone who knows what they like, shortly after they were disposed of by someone who had been blessed with second thoughts. What matters is the food coming out of the kitchen, overseen by a chef who used to work at Harrods. Take that as a recommendation. The store has long had an Arab clientele who would only go for the good stuff.
The food of the Middle East is, like the region itself, a complex network of interweaving cultures. You can read the same menu – of tabbouleh and fattoush and hummus – from one country to the next, but in each it is subtly, sometimes vastly, different. Certain Lebanese, playing up the influence of the French former colonial power, will tell you that theirs is the most refined expression of this food, that they are the ones who do it properly. I am too much of a diplomat to buy into that theory.
There’s little doubt, however, that there is an emphasis on fresh herbs and vegetables in Lebanese food, which lightens the whole proposition. A meal here won’t make you feel like someone has tarmaced your gut. Take that, fattoush. Many traditions have a salad that uses leftover bread and, being a dish of leftovers, it ends up looking like a store-cupboard rush job, less an act of indulgence than expediency. Here, the pitta bread is cut wafer thin and deep fried to a greaseless crisp. There are carved hunks of tight, crisp lettuce hearts and a dressing heavy with the boisterous purple citrus of sumac. Miss Julie is right; it’s a beautiful thing.
This is an add-on to the Dalila mezze of seven starters plus a mixed grill for £19.95. We are two adults and two kids so we order enough for three. Two portions would have done. There’s Lebanese “moussaka”, a fresh stew of roasted tomatoes, aubergines and chickpeas, full of light acidic notes and sweet, caramelised sugars. There’s a silky hummus whipped up with tahini, and lots of fluffy, warm flatbread to eat it with. The tabbouleh is a whip-crack of lemon, parsley and mint, vastly outweighing the light ballast of cracked bulgur wheat. As it should be. The kibbeh – tight, deep-fried, hollow lamb ovals – are a heavenly rush of meaty oils and spice.
We argue over the falafel. I like the crisp, nutty exterior; others find them dry. It’s my column: I’m right. The chicken wings, just the thick drumstick portions, are smoky and salty and charred and huge. I wouldn’t want to meet the chicken these came from on a dark night. I liked eating it, though.
We order an extra of arayess – flatbread filled with minced, spiced and compressed lamb, which is then grilled. It has to be the filthiest, most compelling sandwich ever invented. The fat runs through the crisped bread. And then carried on those juices comes a ricochet of spice and aromatics. We throw ourselves into it, tearing pieces off the thin patty of lamb, knowing it is best when hot off the flame. Hence we groan when the mixed grill turns up: the thick minced lamb and minced chicken kebabs, the grilled chunks of more chicken and lamb, all of it with the blackened mark of the charcoal over which it is grilled. We cannot finish it and have to ask for what remains to be boxed up to take home.
There’s a list of great Lebanese wines at great prices. A 2001 Château Musar, which retails for £26, is on the list here for £45. We do not have room for dessert, but as the serviceable pastries given to us with the bill are not made in-house, they need not detain you. What matters is the vivacity, the freshness, the sheer unbridled loveliness of what is actually made here. Do go. It was a little empty the day we were there and it deserves to be full. And if they ask, say Julie Flint sent you. She knows her stuff.
Jay’s news bites
■ It may not have the delicacy or finesse of Dalila – let’s not start trying to compare the Greek and Lebanese traditions; no good can come from it – but Primrose Hill stalwart Lemonia makes up for it with clatter and buzz. Hell, this place even has a tree growing in the back dining room. The mezze at £21.50 will keep even the most unashamed of appetites busy for a good while (lemonia.co.uk).
■ The owner of Saffron, an Indian restaurant near Blackpool, has reacted with surprise at the discovery of 26 chickens in the building’s back yard during a routine health inspection. Rakmat Ullah told the Blackpool Gazette the birds must have been “planted” there. “I never expected to see anything like that,” he was reported to have said. The birds were taken away by the RSPCA. It is not known whether this impacted on that evening’s menu.
■ It’s summer, so what better time to celebrate the Christmas offering from Marks & Spencer, which has just been announced. This includes a brussels-sprout drink, a Christmas-cake liqueur and a Christmas-dinner pie. Oh God.
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk. Follow Jay on Twitter @jayrayner1
