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Manzara
ONE of the things I've learnt from writing this column is that you cannot begin to tell what a restaurant will be like from the way it looks. If you were walking past Manzara, the newish Turkish restaurant in Pem- bridge Road, Notting Hill (01-727 3062), it's unlikely you would be tempted to go in. For a start, it hardly looks like a restaurant at all. The garish take-away counter (sea- ring strip-lighting and Technicolor photo- graphs of doner kebabs taken at rakish angles) at the front looks like some sort of Foto Kwik booth. Inside is more sedate: not a haven of beauty, but inoffensive. The walls are a sanitised white, and sanitised Paintings are hung on them. The res- taurant's country of origin is hinted at by the occasional frond and over-exuberant heating. The effect is countered somewhat by a boldly eclectic choice of piped music (loos are wired up for sound, too), but the food is genuine enough.
History and geography have provided Turkey with a rich cuisine: part Byzantine, Part Oriental, part Mediterranean: Ata- turk's Westernisation programme in the Twenties has left only a small mark on the Turks' preparation of and attitude towards their food.
Naturally enough, it is at the most opulent period in a country's history that its finest cuisine develops. And many characteristically Turkish dishes should more properly, you feel, be eaten in a harem: Hunkar Begendi (Sultan's De- light); Kadin Gobegi (Ladies' Navels); Kadin Buda (Ladies' Thighs); Oilber Dudaqi (Sweet Lips); Hanim Parmagi (Dainty Fingers); or Imam Bayildi (Swooning Priest). I, however, would be happier eating them here, in less luxurious Notting Hill.
Hors d'oeuvre — the meze (or mezeler) — are the focal point of any Turkish meal: though you would do better here — if there are more than two of you — to choose the individual dishes yourself rather than go for the 'mixed mezes Manzara style', which offers a rather obvious, limited selection.
From the cold meze, then, there's a taramasalata of far greater sublety than the coral-coloured deli variety; dolma (vine leaves stuffed with rice, onions, herbs and pine kernels), pashirma (cured steak which they impressionistically call 'the Parma ham of Turkey); Imam Bayildi (the rata- touille of the Middle East); and, not to be missed, tabbouleh — a lemony salad of cracked wheat, with spring onions, toma- toes, walnuts, green peppers and enor- mous amounts of mint and parsley.
From the hot meze, I would choose the calamari if they've got any (they are meant to be a fixture but don't be surprised if they tell you they're 'off for tonight'), the borek, a samosa-like fried pastry envelope filled with a mixture of fetta and parsley, and the Inegol koftesi, minced meat with chopped-up mint and salad. With the meze comes pide — the pitta bread of Turkey — and I would order chilli peppers, too.
As in all Middle Eastern cuisines,, for meat read lamb. And the lamb here is exceptional. Shish and doner kababs are the most famous dishes, and the most commonly devalued: here, they are as they should be --- tender and full of the flavour of the meat and its marinade. But if sweaty street vendors have put you off kebabs for life, try instead the shepherd's special — charcoal-grilled lamb fillets with tomatoes -- or incik, knuckle of lamb stewed with rosemary — mutton stew, in fact, only nobody likes to call it mutton any more. There is, notionally, fish on the menu, but that was 'off. when I was in, too. A pity, because it plays a central part in Turkish cooking; obviously you get a better catch in the Bosphorous than you do in Notting Hill, despite the fact that one of the best fishmongers in London, Chalmers & Grey, is just over the road.
Off, too, were all the puddings, except the baklava — delicious cigar-shaped rolls of nut-filled, honey-glued pastry shards. There is a basic, cheap wine list, and I would choose, however eccentric it sounds, the retsina at £6.50 a bottle: it's the only retsina I've ever drunk which hasn't given me a headache. And at £57 for four (taking in four bottles of it), the bill was pretty much painfree, too.
Nigella Lawson
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