Review of the reviews
The main entrance area is a clus- ter-headache of cherry-red cor- rugated metal, throbbing neon signage, and hip hop cranked to sternum-juddering volume. The kitchens are hidden away in a basement, perhaps to bet- ter obscure the fact that, as per the heavily asterisked menu, many of the dishes appear to be prepared from frozen. And when your order is ready it is announced, not by a gruffly avuncular Turkish man wear- ing a thin gold chain, but by trilling rail terminus pips and a computerised, Squid Game-style voice over a tannoy system. Squid Game? A dystopia
in which economic strife has caused people to make question- able choices? That feels about right. Because though I went to Kebhouze thinking it would be an entertaining journey into the fast-casual heart of darkness, I left thoroughly depressed about what its probable success says about the decidedly “this’ll do” future of mainstream, TikTok-age dining. Still, let the record show that
Jimi Famurewa left Kebhouze on Oxford Street, London, ‘thoroughly depressed’
the first few dishes were at least vaguely competent. The Little Italy – essentially a chicken doner wrap, rigged with black olives and sun-dried tomatoes – was a testament to the kebab’s failsafe allure: a cudgel of warm,
The standout dish for me
London’s Akara services hearty, trailblazing food to Grace Dent The food is hearty rather than fancy; if, for example, you order the Lagos chicken from the larger plates section of the menu, what turns up is a whole, splayed, spatchcocked poussin drizzled with vibrant orange sosu kaani, a Senegalese hot sauce singing with Habañero chilli peppers and garlic. There’s also grilled pollock with a yassa sauce made from deeply cara- melised onion and lemon, and a vegan dish of grilled cabbage in carrot sauce and herby oil. This isn’t stand-on-ceremony food, this is a dig-in type of dinner – although your servers will hap- pily explain the cooking process if you ask them to.
10 | The Caterer | 26 January 2024
was a side of fried plantain with octopus, served in a curiously delicate and deft way, and made lively with pepper relish. The efik rice is pale, having been simmered in chicken broth and coconut, and, if you like, comes topped with seared mackerel. If you want something green on the table to make you feel healthy, there is a salad of baby gem, crisp shallots and spiced peanuts to pair with your Sen- egalese-sauced poussin. It is no small feat to trailblaze
in this way, bringing much-loved dishes to an audience that may never have eaten them before, and hoping both to delight and to broaden horizons. We finished with tamarind
date sponge cake with tonka bean cream, which was kind of inevitable from the moment I saw it on the menu. Akara is worth visiting if only for the dish the place is named after.
“Kebhouze’s noisy half- heartedness feels both fascinating and grimly predictable”
decently seasoned shawarma meat that worked despite those chaotic panini fixings and a flat- bread prone to disintegration. Kebhouze’s noisy half-heart-
edness feels both fascinating and grimly predictable; a calcu- lated bet that – at a time when Greggs is planning to open 160 new branches in a year – cheapness and convenience will trump haphazard quality for din- ers who just want to shovel some- thing in from the happy cocoon of a lunchtime scroll-hole.
Benjamin Salmon escapes to the Bracken Hide hotel on the Isle of Skye The Bracken Hide acts as a retreat away from the tour- ist honeypot that is Portree. Perched on a slight elevation above the town, one view from the hotel faces the barren hills inland, while the other looks out onto Loch Portree and, fur- ther afield, to rolling hills on the neighbouring island of Raasay. The centrepiece of the hotel is
the extraordinary main building containing the lobby, restaurant and whisky bar with the cabin- style rooms set separately. Built like a curved wooden box and plonked on top of a hill, it looks as if modernist Scandi-chic and traditional Scottish style had
a baby. Stepping through the front doors into the lobby, visitors are presented with huge floor-to- ceiling windows below a soaring asymmetric vaulted ceiling pre- senting views of the bay below. The restaurant, Fraser’s,
shares the same vast space, with an abundance of natural light flowing through the windows. Soft brown hues of matted pinewood walls and straw light shades are offset by ocean blue coloured plates and verdant green bursts of well-kept plants lined along the walls. Low-key alcove seating and the inclusion of teal-coloured wall tiles fram- ing a semi-open kitchen create a space with the feel of a Los Angeles beachfront café. It is a genuinely beautiful backdrop to the dining experience. With over £8m spent over
six years to build the hotel, a few trees and bushes to make the place feel more established wouldn’t have gone amiss.
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