Berber & Q

My little antenna popped up when I heard about this restaurant.. anything in a railway arch and I’m game, it’s so east London we all secretly love it. At the mention of tender smoked meats we were setting a date to go.

We arrived on a Wednesday and only a 30 min wait (yes it’s another no reservation place, I know…) we did have stools near the bar so we took the opportunity to order a cocktail of course. I don’t like really sweet cocktails, so Top Shelf, their take on a whisky sour was perfect. We had two more later on in the evening, you know to make sure we had a fair range and it is a really well thought out list, with interesting middle eastern twists on all the classics. Haggerstoned being another favourite – Tequila, Chartreuse, pistachio and orange bitters.

So on to the food, we started with a whole smoked head of garlic.. which was incredible. If you like garlic this is absolutely the ultimate starter we were scraping the plate, the flavours were wonderful.

Next, the meat tray after a slight disagreement as my date wanted to order every meat?!

Two meats is enough for two people, we are greedy so we had two and a half. Meats: pork belly, chicken and lamb. Sides: smoked aubergine, sweetcorn. Mixed pickles. The tray comes with salad, spicy harrissa and cumin.

Honestly its tough to pick between the meats they all bring so many flavours to the tray. Don’t miss out on the sides the middle eastern influences mean anything put on that massive grill comes out tasting delicious, so if you are a veggie it is definitely still worth a visit.

We actually didn’t have a dessert, a rarity for us but we heard good things. Do you need a to go and sit under a railway arch, listen to good music and dig into some smokey deliciousness.. because we will DEFINITELY be back =)

UPDATED: and I have been back, many times…