Maray, 91 Bold Street, Liverpool L1 4HF (0151 709 5820). Meal for two, including drinks and service: £60
In keeping with the current vogue on campus, this review comes with a trigger warning. At some point over the next 1,100 words, I believe I am going to come across as grossly patronising, sodden with metropolitan disdain and lousy with condescension. This, in turn, could trigger in many of you outbreaks of acute eye-rolling and sighing. To be fair, none of this is very different from usual. It’s just going to be more obvious this week. This is because I am overwhelmed by the impulse to tell you exactly what went through my head during the entire process of booking and eating at Maray in Liverpool, rather than dressing it up with some faux out-of-London friendly niceties to make myself sound better. This may not always be pretty.
The fact is I never intended to review the place. I booked in because I had a show to do that night and, unlike most of the other restaurants in Liverpool, Maray was prepared to take a 9.30pm booking. (I whinged on Twitter about how hard it was to find somewhere to eat post 9pm outside London; I was met with the quite reasonable response from chefs that my struggle was as nothing compared to theirs to find enough customers willing to do so.) Their ability to take that booking – in my own name; as I say I wasn’t planning to write about it – even trumped my suspicion of the language used on the website.
Because apparently they had not merely written their menu. They had “curated” the damn thing. Oh God. I’ve whinged about this before, but that’s not going to stop me doing so again. The word curate is not a synonym for “chosen” or “collected”. If it was, then in recent weeks I have curated the contents of my fridge, my underwear drawer and my prejudices. It must be infuriating to all the genuine curators in museums the world over, pursuing their calling with dedication and experience, that every half-arsed cocktail jockey, stove monkey or DJ has co-opted the term to make their jobs sound better. I suppose saying you curate contemporary sounds for an athletic body movement-aware demimonde does sound a bit better than: “I put on records in a nightclub.”
Except, having eaten at Maray, I am willing to acknowledge that there is something akin to curation going on here. They have curated a load of the best stuff currently omnipresent in London, and brought it here. The restaurant’s name is apparently a phonetic realisation of the Marais district of Paris. There, in the tight knot of streets just behind the Bastille, long one of the city’s Jewish areas, the three young founders were much taken by the falafel joints. They wanted to bring something of that back to Liverpool. And the falafel at Maray, apparently made from scratch every day rather than with chickpea flour, is a marvellous thing: crisp outside, puffing a sweet nuttiness from inside as you break them open. They come with a smear of hummus punched up with the fire of harissa and, for ballast, a little tabbouleh. Flatbreads are delivered to the table soft and warm.
But what’s really interesting is the rest of the menu. This is a small plates, sharing portions gaff, the sort of thing you can’t move for in Dalston and Peckham. What’s extremely clever, however, is that it manages to cover seemingly every genre going. So, while the flavours of the Middle Eastern grill house do predominate, it’s also a bit Skandi and a bit pimped American junk food. It is all the clichés that we have become very used to in the capital across multiple restaurants, only crammed into one. In the hands of a lesser kitchen this could be a car crash, complete with tyre marks, collapsed lamp posts and distraught witnesses; a cacophony of plates, each of which is a fumble of the genuine article. But Maray does all of these things very well indeed, and at an exceptionally good price. Most dishes cost £6 or a little less.
From the Middle Eastern end of the menu comes a lump of roasted cauliflower with high smoky notes, dressed with tahini, yogurt, more harissa, flaked almonds and the sweet burst of pomegranate seeds. The much-lauded Palomar in London’s Soho does this. Maray does it equally well, but much cheaper. From the same side of the menu comes thumb-thick pieces of butternut squash, roasted until caramelised and soft, and dressed with cooling tahini and the sweet-sour punch of a sticky balsamic reduction. Planks of seared wild mushroom come on a buttery purée of the same and dressed with the aromatics of dukkah, until they smell like an old spice shop in a Turkish bazaar.
Next up something from northern latitudes, bringing a lightness to the darker flavours of the Middle East: pristine cubes of beetroot and gin-cured trout, with the crunch of pickled cucumber, which reminds me of the food at Rök a couple of weeks back. Non-meat dishes predominate here – Monday’s are completely meat free – but from the short list we get their buttermilk fried chicken, made with thigh meat as it should be, and drizzled with a spiced honey. God, but it’s good: crispy, salty and sweet. So that’s a nod to Spuntino or Rita’s. Heads of kale are deep fried and dressed with salt and chilli. They crumble and puff to nothing in our mouths and are completely addictive.
There are just two desserts including a plum and pear cheesecake which we are told is “deconstructed”. That’s the kind of thing which could make me a bit punchy and shouty. Couldn’t you just make a real one? But I rather like the bowl of whipped sweetened cream with a fruit purée and a kind of biscuit gravel. It’s not a cheesecake and has no hope of ever being one, but it’s extremely edible.
The room is long and narrow and has distressed brickwork on one side and white walls the other, hung with edgy pop art. The tables are made from reclaimed doors and sewing machine stands. The kitchen is half open and staffed by a bearded man. Some of the wines are biodynamic. Well, of course they are. But that’s OK. Liverpool’s restaurant sector is expanding. Interesting things are happening. But, right now, it’s unlikely it could support three small sharing-plate joints covering, say, the Middle East, Scandinavia and the US. Happily, it doesn’t need to. Because down on Bold Street there’s a place called Maray. And it’s doing the job just fine.
Jay’s news bites
■ The Palomar, at the unsexy end of London’s Rupert Street, has managed the rare trick of creating a vibe without letting it overwhelm the food. Sit at the bar, back chat with the chefs, drink shots and enjoy the Israeli-influenced food, such as the Jerusalem mix of chicken livers, hearts and veal sweetbreads seared with okra, tomato and tahini (thepalomar.co.uk).
■ Given the excitement around steaks from long-lived Spanish dairy cows, it was only time before a British equivalent emerged. Butcher Salter & King of Aldeburgh, Suffolk is selling meat from a 12-year-old Lincoln Red. ‘The colour is dark and intense,’ says Gerard King, ‘and the yellow fat runs lightly right through the meat.’ They deliver nationwide (salterandking.co.uk).
■ Ping Coombes, who won MasterChef in 2014, has surfaced in her first restaurant role. She is consulting on the menu at Chi Kitchen, located in Debenhams on London’s Oxford Street. It will finally make her famed laksa available to the public (chikitchen.co.uk).
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter@jayrayner1@jayrayner1
