Donna Margherita: An Italian Place that Stands Out, But Not Necessarily for its Pizza

Name Donna Margherita
Address 183 Lavender Hill, London  SW11 5TE
Phone 020 7228 2660
Web site http://www.donna-margherita.com/
Main dish price range   £7.75-9.90
Rating  3.5 Stars.  Great restaurant if you're there for the atmosphere, the football, and the burrata.  
Recommended dishes: Burrata with eggplant puree and pesto, Saltimbocca Fritto e al Forno 

Nick and I, as we've indicated on this blog before, are nothing if not suckers for a good Neapolitan pizza.  In 2009 we took a special trip to Rome, Naples, and the Amalfi Coast, partially inspired by our near weekly trips to our favorite Neapolitan pizza place in New York.  Our regular ritual involved making a pilgrimage there after the gym or work, gulping down a whole pizza each-- savoring the gooey center and the pitch-perfect fresh basil-- before washing it down with a glass of house red wine. Perfezione! 

Football Jerseys inside Donna Margherita.

So we were thrilled when an Italian friend told us about Donna Margherita, a small trattoria in South London that she said was a favorite haunt of employees working at the Italian embassy. This seemed like the perfect spot for us to continue our quest to locate and consume London's best Neapolitan pizzas, a journey that had already made us fans of Exmouth Market's Santore. Reading up on Donna Margherita, we were even further encouraged by its bevy of followers: No less a vaunted source than Dan Lepard, the former pastry chef at St. John's, has called it a source of "near-perfect" pizza.

When we arrived on a sunny Saturday, we were immediately taken in by Donna Margherita's quirky, down-to-earth charm.  Italian soccer jerseys hung on one wall, as did a black and white picture of a person we're told is among Southern Italy's most famous comics-cum-mimes. (Side note: This would be a killer place to watch an Italian Serie A game.) A sculpture/city scene made largely using pizza dough stood in one corner begging for attention. We immediately got the meal off to an auspicious start by ordering a selection of antipasti (not on the menu, but you can ask for it), which included what turned out to be a delicious plate-- a large chunk of mouthwateringly perfect fresh burrata cheese, flown in from Italy and presented in a bed of aubergine puree. Like a good burrata it cut open to reveal a gooey rich  center, rich as butter. A smear of homemade pesto snaked along the side of our plate, tasting like perfection.

Donna Margherita: A burrata to remember.

Next up, we ventured into some main courses.  Although we were there to taste the pizza, at least primarily, I decided to also tuck into one of the dishes on the menu's "homemade pasta" section-- the O'Scialatiell ro' re Ferdinando, a classic seafood scialatielli dish. (On our trip years ago to Amalfi, one of my favorite meals was a seafood scialatielli cooked by a nice grandmotherly like woman in a tiny restaurant in the basement of her house-- so any dish of this sort has a special place in the depths of my food memories.)  At Donna Margherita, the pasta had that perfect consistency, bordering on gummy, that makes homemade pasta such a consistent delight.  The seafood-- which included bits of squid, clams, and a giant prawn on top-- also tasted  fresh and well prepared.  The dish, however, was a bit more salty and garlicky than I would typically consider ideal, and could have used a few more tomatoes to cut those flavors.  Still though, a solid offering.  

Sampling the pasta offerings: the O'Scialatiell ro re' Fernando.  

We then turned to the main attraction: the pizza. Nick and I always try to test a new Neapolitan pizza place by testing the most simple iteration of the dish-- the Margherita pizza, which ideally should be the perfect balance between tart tomatoes, warm mozzarella, and pieces of cool fresh basil.  The best version of this dish is presented piping hot, with an almost liquid center. At Donna Margherita, however, the pizza came out lukewarm, ruining some of the pizza's inherent magic.  The middle felt cool and soggy and some of the tastes dulled by this presentation. A friend who ordered a slightly more complicated pie-- the Prosciutto e Funghi-- said he felt similarly: the pizza was adequate, but definitely not a knockout.

Not living up to the hype: The Margherita pizza at Donna Margherita.

Our meal, however, did include one very pleasant main-course surprise. The Italian friend who joined us skipped the pizza altogether, choosing instead to get one the restaurant's saltimboccas, a small sandwich native to Naples. (Not to be confused with the "saltimboccas" endemic to Rome and parts of Switzerland, Spain, and Greece-- a meat dish that involves marinating prosciutto or veal in wine or saltwater.)  I'd the Naples version of this sandwich before, and always marveled at the texture of the pizza dough that's used as the sandwich bread, which some restaurants, Donna Margherita included, make crunchy and crackly-- almost like a cracker-- by frying and then baking.  Here, this hard-to-find dish was practically perfect.  The restaurant offers versions with four different fillings, and the Saltimbocca Fritto e al Forno, filled with provola cheese, cherry tomatoes, fresh rocket, and shavings of parmesan and porchetta, was a stunner. If I lived anywhere near Lavender Hill, this dish alone would make me a Donna-Margherita regular.

Taste the crunch: The divine Saltimbocca Fritto e al Forno.

All in all, Nick and I were glad to have visited Donna Margherita, and would definitely come back again for sandwiches and some quality football/soccer watching.  Crowds of Italian speaking families also added to the place's quirky charm. For now though, our go-to Neapolitan pizza place remains Exmouth Market's Santore.  But, our journey to try all of London's best-reviewed places continues. The lengthy lines so far have prevented us from trying Franco Manga in Brixton, but we'll report back once we do.

Needoo Grill: A Tayyabs Alternative that Just Might Best the Original

Name Needoo Grill 
Address 87 New Road, E1 1HH
Phone 020 72470648
Web site  http://needoogrill.co.uk/
Main dish price range £5-15
Rating 5 Stars. Just as good as Tayyabs-- believe it. 
Recommended dishes Daighi Slow Cooked Dry Meat, Needoo's Peshwari Nan, Daal Baingun


Nick and I have recently gone to Paris for a couple weekends-- what London food lover can resist it?-- and while researching where to engorge ourselves on that side of the channel, I've been spending a lot of time on the Chowhound message boards. And that's, curiously, how I learned about the Needoo Grill. On the London section of Chow, Needoo Grill is enjoying something of a glory ride, with all sorts of foodies saying that this restaurant is better than New Tayyabs-- the famed, lines-out-the-door, addictive Punjabi kebabs house.  And it certainly has the credibility to make that believable: Needoo, which is around the corner in from Tayyabs' little kebab kingdom, was founded by a former Tayyabs chef.  Just walking past you catch a whiff of the same sort of meaty deliciousness.  (See our the blog's take on Tayyabs here.) 

Meat Lovers: A peak inside the kebab counter at Needoo Grill.

Nick and I clearly walked into Needoo with sky-high expectations.  And I'm thrilled to say, we were not disappointed. Needoo, with its spunky red walls and dining room lit by a skylight, is much smaller than Tayyabs, with just 80 seats. It takes reservations, a blissful luxury for anyone who's ever stood lurking between the tables at Tayyabs, waiting for one to open up or e-mailed that restaurant to see about a table, only to never hear back. And the food at Needoo remains amazingly cheap (by London standards, anyway) and sinfully delicious.  Every greatest hit from Tayyabs are also available here, with a few, Needoo-unique gems to boot. 

Can I eat this everyday?  Daighi Slow Cooked Dry Meat.

Needoo has a whole slew of kebabs, as well as the same, sizzling lamb chops beloved around the corner. (Here they're almost good as Tayyabs-- but a bit on the anemic side-- available 4 chops for £6). Seek Kebabs are on offer too, tender and juicy and only 90p each. Our favorite dish though is the Daighi Slow Cooked Dry Meat (£7 for small portion, £13.80 for large one). This entree, with a slightly different name, is also on the Tayyabs menu, but here it achieves the impossible, slightly besting the original version. To those unfamiliar with this curry dish, Punjabi chefs make it by first roasting spices (like chili, tumeric, garlic) and building up a thick paste in the pan. Then the meat is added in and cooked for hours, until each piece starts to break apart and the sauce becomes almost dry. At Needoo, the flavor was more powerful than at Tayyabs and the lamb was the cooked to tender, almost gooey perfection.  We sat at the table for a few minutes after eating it, dazed. 

I want Candy: The sweet Peshwari naan.

Another highlight of Needoo is that the vegetables and daals on offer and memorable and well thought out in their own right-- unlike the afterthought they sometimes feel like at Tayyabs. The restaurant boasts eight vegetarian entrees, which can make a nice addition to a table already loaded sky high with finger licking chops and meat-intensive curries.  A favorite of ours is the Daal Baingun (£5.20 for a small, £10 for a large), a yellow daal loaded with soft, gooey baby aubergines/eggplants. Another highlight is the transcendent Peshwari Naan  (£3 each), a pillowy, sweet naan drizzled with butter and filled with nuts, sugar, and anise seed-- a heavenly combination that really should be on more Indian menus, or better yet, just handed out on every street corner. The world would be a much happier place. 

Veggie heaven too? Last remaining schmear of our order of Daal Baingun.

And although they may be neck and neck in terms of the quality of their food, when it comes to service, you're in a whole other superior world at Needoo. I'm no Gloria Steinem, and I certainly understand that different cultures behave differently towards women, but I've always felt a bit miffed and disappointed by the dismissive way women are often treated by the Tayyabs staff. I've had several times when I've gestured for the waiter at that restaurant to come to my table and he's walked up, looked at Nick (avoiding eye contact with me all together) and said, "Sir, is there something your table will be needing?"  (Other lady friends of mine have similar grumbles.) Contrast that with my first experience at Needoo: When Nick and I debated whether we should add an order of lamb chops to the mountains of food already on our table, the waiter sensed that I was pushing for more food. (I'm always the glutton-- always.) When we ultimately passed up on the order, the waiter brought a single lamb chop over to our table anyway, and said to me with a smile, "A gift for the lady on the house!"  VIP treatment, indeed.   

Snack time: The fresh veg offered before the meat arrives. 

A few more random reflections for readers: Like Tayyabs, the restaurant is BYOB, always an obvious plus. The mix of raw veggies they give you while you wait for your food are surprisingly refreshing, and a nice way to prep and cleanse before the meat onslaught.  And although I always preach the idea of ordering off menu if it appears there are secret menu items ordered by regulars and locals, in this one case Nick and I felt disappointed. After seeing a couple big tables of South Asian customers eating whole, roast chicken, we asked for the same during one trip to Needoo and got one for just  £10.  It was good, but in a bland, unmemorable rotisserie chicken way; nothing like the spectacularly seasoned, unforgettable Needoo dishes we were used to. Our verdict was a definite pass. 

Lone offender: Bits of our whole roast chicken, plus a yummy seek kebab.

All that said, Nick and I have now pretty much stopped going to Tayyabs in favor of Needoo-- its nicer, friendlier, and-often-more-delicious cousin.  Now if only we could convince our friends, many of whom still want the original Coke to Needoo's Pepsi. We heard the hype. Now we believe it. 

Rasa: Unique South Indian Gem in Stoke Newington

Name Rasa N16
Address 55 Stoke Newington Church Street, London N16 OAR 
Phone 020 7249 0344
Web site http://www.rasarestaurants.com
Main dish price range £4-6
Rating 5 Stars. The best restaurant in its genre in London.
Recommended dishes Bagur Baingan, Kovakka Olathiathu 

Tonight the new stewardess of your ethnic eating blog decided to go on a little adventure: I hopped on the 73 bus and headed to Stoke Newington to try out Rasa, a tiny, pink-walled restaurant that specializes in food from the South Indian state of Kerala. Rasa is a vegetarian-only mini-chain that in recent years has grown from a single restaurant in Stoke Newington to a seven-location mini-empire, including locations as far out as Brighton and Newcastle. Being first timers, my husband and I decided to start with the original location, a cozy spot with magenta and orange silks hanging from the walls and smells of turmeric and mustard seed wafting out from the kitchen.

Can you beat these pickles?

I've always thought that creating a truly amazing vegetarian restaurant is no easy feat. As a huge fan of meats, many restaurants wow me by picking excellent, flavorful cuts, smoking them to perfection, and presenting them simply. (See: the delicious lamb chops at Tayyabs, a favorite restaurant of the blog.) Rasa, however, aims to make up make up for its lack of a meat trump card by going for bold flavors and carefully-executed dishes-- chutneys are homemade and hand sliced in the kitchen, and some foods, like the Indian wedding dish Beet Cheera Pachadi, mix up flavors in ways that won't see at your standard Brick-Lane curry house. (That dish consists of beets, yogurt, roasted coconut, mustard seeds, and curry leaves, if you're curious.)

To start off, we ordered a Nair Dosa, which is a rice and black gram flour pancake filled with a combination of potatoes, beetroot, carrots, onion and ginger. The dosa itself was the perfect consistency, and since we asked for our food spicy, had the ideal amount of kick that lingered on the tongue. The sambar that came with it was hardly an afterthought either-- once we'd finished polishing off our dosas, my husband and I kept drizzling it over the our coconut rice, savoring the unique combination of spices.

Another starter, the handmade pickle and chutney platter was also a real star. Unlike a lot of potted chutneys available in many restaurants-- full of so much sugar, some of the nuance is lost-- each one of these six-mini dishes was excellently crafted to serve as the perfect, pre-meal palette cleanser. Of particular was the lemon pickle-- cured lemons, seeded with a hint of sweet-- and also a mango chutney that balanced thinly sliced mangoes with a dusting of spice. The whole thing was a riot of color and taste combinations that we loved dipping into to explore. 

Our feast in its full glory.

After the refreshing jolt of the pickles, we were ready to move on to the main course. One of the curries we tried was a huge hit with my husband, but fell a little flat on my side of the table.  It was the Moru Kachiathu, a bright yellow curry that combines green bananas, globs of sweet mangoes, yogurt, and fresh chili and curry leaves.  With this dish, Rasa continued to prove that fresh ingredients are really this restaurants jam-- even though the days are in London are rapidly getting shorter and colder, the mango was perfectly ripe and soft, and provided an excellent counterbalance to the more pungent taste of the green bananas.  I'm not sure the sweet and sour curry is really my favorite form of Indian food, but it was so unique, it was a dish I could truly respect without wanting to order it next time.

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Tindori: cucumbers, baby ones

Any skepticism I had though was quickly washed down when I tasted the next dish.  The Bagur Baingan (the top curry in the photo) is the best curry I've ever in London, and quite possibly the best curry I've ever had, maybe second only to some of the deliciousness at SriPraPhai-- the stunningly amazing Thai restaurant in Queens, New York.  This dish was thick and gloppy, sort of with the consistency of an oatmeal, and a mix of incredibly delicate flavors. Before cooking them over a fire, the chef rolls the aubergines that form the base of this dish in a paste made of roasted onions, coriander seeds, fresh chilies and tamarind. The warm cubes that result, still gooey on the inside, are then pillowed in a white liquid made of yogurt blended with cashew nut sauce. The end product: a masterpiece, clocking in at only.£4.

The rest of our meal had some notable additions that showed the real care that goes into everything on offer at Rasa. A side dish we had, the Kovakka Olathiathu, consisted of a vegetable we'd never seen, Tindori-- or tiny baby cucumbers-- mixed memorably with dry roasted cashews, coconuts, mustard seeds, and curry leaves.  The coconut rice was also good, and comes already blended with a bit of black daaal, a nice touch.

All in all, we were wowed by the food at Rasa and can't wait to return.  (Eating our leftovers cold the next day was surprisingly satisfying too.)  The Website of the Rasa empire-- which is also pepto-bismo hued, charmingly -- displays a prominent, unattributed quote: "Once there was a time when the whole world was enamored with the fragrance of Kerala." After one visit to this gem, I believe it. 

Baraka in Whitechapel: A Tayyab's Alternative?

Name Baraka Eatery‎
Address 38-40 Whitechapel Rd E1 1JX
Phone 020 74260550
Web site barakaeatery.co.uk
Main dish price range £6-10
Rating 3 stars. Solid, you should go there if you are in the area.
Recommended dishes Achari Goscht

My first visit to Tayyab's, 10:30pm on a Sunday night, was a great success. My second, on a Friday evening, was a failure -- an epic line scared me promptly away. My 3rd visit, last Thursday around 6pm, was supposed to be better? Who could imagine a line at that early hour. Even when I got there and saw it with my own eyes, I had to actually wait in it for 20 minutes before I was convinced.

Ellen and I gave up, and headed around the corner to what looked to be a new restaurant, advertising South Asian food in the kind of colorful, modern, cheap environment that Londers seem to love so much. Normally, this kind of décor would have frightened my right away, but in this case a coupla dudes in kurtas and the location right next door to the massive East London Mosque and Muslim Center made me feel that it might have some worth. It was also largely empty, so I knew we would be seated and served right away.

It turned out to be a Bangladeshi restaurant which does a turn in Indian and Middle Eastern foods as well (to satisfy as many of the worshippers from next door as possible no doubt). I asked the eager Bangladeshi waiter for a few recommendations, and he inevitably directed my towards some of the "white people favourites" he assumed I could stomach. I took a Chicken Chilli after his emphatic recommendation, but then rounded the meal out with a few choices from the Bangladeshi side of the menu.

Chicken Chilli was OK, not great, but the Bangladeshi dishes really shone, especially the Achari Goscht, a lamb dish with a sauce made from pickled vegetables. I have never had anything quite like it in a restaurant, and it was great. A Chana Dal had perfectly al dente beans, and it was all served with some complementary salads and breads.

All in all, a solid meal, and a great alternative to the lines at Tayyabs. Easily worth 3 stars. Only the Chicken
Chili kept it from 4.

Tayyabs in Whitechapel

Name Tayyabs
Address 83-89 Fieldgate St E1 1JUPhone 020 72476400
Web site www.tayyabs.co.uk
Main dish price range £5-15
Rating 5 Stars. The best restaurant in its genre in London.
Recommended dishes Lamb Kofte Kebabs, Meat with Bindhi
This is the best restaurant we have yet been to in London. It's is written up in literally every guidebook; which, given the competition, is not really that much of a feat -- what is startling is that despite the attention it is still turning out terrific meals.
On a Sunday night around 9pm the place was jumping, but our party of three managed to get squeezed into a table. The crowd was mostly South Asian, although the décor was the cheap-looking hip and colorful design scheme that appears to be standard issue for popular London places. The waiter called me "Boss" as he seated us and I knew I was in for a treat.
The food is Punjabi -- authentically Punjabi -- which means it’s a lot of grilled meats and fairly thick curries. It's the kind of North Indian food that most London curry shops have modified for English tastes, and it is terrifically refreshing to have in its cream- and sugar-free original. We ordered a set of kebabs (60p each!), and then moved on to a variety of curries, all of which were excellent. The "Bhindi with Meat" was particularly good. The only dish that missed the spot was a Chicken Biryani -- but I should have known better than to order that South Indian classic in a Punjabi joint.
Indeed, the food was so good that after we wolfed it down I seriously considered ordering another round for take-away to have for dinner the following night. The following day, I wish I had. After three months with no 5-star choices, now I've got two in a row! (the other being Ranoush Juice)

Chowki in Picadilly

Name Chowki
Address 2-3 Denman Street, London W1D 7HA Phone 020 7439 1330
Web site http://www.chowki.com/
Main dish price range £10-15
Rating 3 Stars. Solid pick, you won't be disappointed.
Recommended dishes Lucknow Lamb Korma

Pankaj Mishra, one of my favorite Indian authors, recently wrote a piece for the FT lamenting the state of Indian food in London, India's former imperial capital. As I've mentioned here before, it's all very much true, and in my opinion mostly due to the fact that when the tone was set for Indian cooking, the whole idea of food was not very much appreciated. It was the 60's, mostly people ate boiled meat, and salt and pepper were viewed as indulgent spices. It's not wonder that when Britishers think of curry, they think of mutely-colored, mutely-flavored, heavily creamed dishes.

So when Pankaj Mishra went on to list what he viewed as the only decent Indian joint in town as being Chowki, and that Chowki happened to be right near my office, I simply had to go. Chowki specializes in Indian regional fare, which I suppose is it's way of saying that the food they serve is the food that one might expect if one were actually in a region of India, as opposed to what passes for Indian food in London. Chowki is very much representative of a new wave of Indian immigration, itself representative of an entirely new India. The decorations are cheerful, the clientele and service young and busy, and the modern din is much reminiscent of the places my young colleagues have taken me to in Bangalore or Hyderabad. Chowki violates all of the interior-design rules set by the earlier generations of curry shops: there are no white table clothes, they use glasses rather than goblets, and there are large windows through which one can actually see the street.

I've read that Chowki's menu varies to reflect a different region of India every few months. Apparently they've abandoned this, and now just have a number of dishes from named regions, arrayed across a rather confusing glossy menu. The food, once ordered, is promptly served in a set comprising of a main dish, a plate of rice, and a lentil dal. It's exactly how a modern Indian would expect to be served, if he were trying to imitate the individual-serving style of western restaurants, but seeing as how Chowki's patrons are mostly trying to escape these staid western traditions, it's not clear why the food doesn't simply come family style.
But no matter. The food overcomes the jumble of its presentation. It's easy to see Mishra likes it -- the curries were very well prepared, nicely spiced, with succulent meat and not a hint of curry to pander to the punters. The Lucknow Lamb Korma stood out as exquisite -- it was clear that the meat was marinated as it should be, and the sauce was absolutely divine -- a finer balancing of flavours I can't recall having.
I'm not really an expert, but I do have reason to call into question the regional provenance of the dishes -- the names are a bit condescending and hardly apropos of anything. Hyderbadi Chicken Curry? Why, anyone who's ever been knows that the dish of that fine Deccan city is Biryani. I spend three months there and can't recall a Chicken Curry. Similarly, the Keralan Prawn Curry, I expected to be a verion of the fine seafood molees that are served in delightfully light coconut broths… instead it was just variation of a basic (but good) tomato curry.

I will certainly be back to Chowki -- even if the menu is a bit weird and gimmicky, and the service chaotic. It's a great spot to get re-aquainted with the flavors of India as they were meant to be, and it takes a rare place among London restaurants that are both cheap and good.

A solid 3-star pick. Better ambience and a more artful menu would easily put it into 4-star territory.