Sharing can be hard, can't it? The last piece of calamari, that final falafel. "Oh no. you have it," you say to your dining companion, but you don't really mean it. Almond Bar can teach us all to share more generously. Maybe. Here, sharing isn't just an option; it's the whole point. The fun lies in being adventurous, ordering lots of separate little dishes, passing them around, tasting everything and experiencing spices and flavours together.
Owned by sisters Carol and Sharon Salloum, Almond Bar is a Middle Eastern mezze den with a sturdy Syrian heart. Long, narrow and decked out in wood and copper, this place mixes old-fashioned Arabic warmth with mod Darlo styling.
Settle in, order an almond-based cocktail and then perhaps start with pita bread and baba ghanoush, garlicky toum or labneh spiced with sumac. Next, try the chicken skewers, warah enab (spiced rice and tomato wrapped in vine leaves), fatayer (homemade spinach pastries), sfiha (lamb and tomato on homemade pastry) and sumbusic (golden pastries filled with a lamb and pine nut filling and spiced with mahlab).
Finally, complete your meal with a helping of the sweet stuff and an authentic coffee that's strong enough to strip paint. The dessert menu offers almond pancakes, baklava and namoura (almond-flavoured semolina served with rosewater syrup).
Andrea Tomaz
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