An Honest Review Of Kismet London

“Everyone cares so much about restaurants these days”, said my dinner date. I looked around the room at one of the most talked-about new openings of recent history. It was a dining room full to the brim with bookings. Tables turning over every hour, the buzz, the noise, the genuine sense of community; Kismet is proof of life for London restaurants.

Londoners care about restaurants. They showed up for Kismet, and Kismet’s returned the favour.
Mallory, Junior Food & Drink Editor

What sets it apart

Kismet opened last month on the famed upper floor of The Globe Tavern in Borough. Already, walking into the venue gives you this sense of purpose or belonging. Past the foot-to-floor post-work drinkers, past the bar, past the loos, up the stairs, through the curtains and into this room that bleeds light from the lace-curtained windows onto the clothed tables. It’s a maze, an invitation to a secret club that everyone’s clued in on. Dinner bookings are full until next month, and everyone with a pulse has got one lined up. I mean that literally, as my boyfriend, who tends to only go to pubs with his mates, had guys’ night coincidentally scheduled on the same night as my own booking right there at Kismet, bottles of wine and hummus in tow. This is not the centre of Borough; this is the centre of the universe. Everyone wants a slice.

What we ordered

Just get the set menu. There’s no reason to overcomplicate things. You’re probably already tipsy from one glass of quite fabulous house white combined with further intoxication from the wafting scents of Turkish spices. I don’t even think I read the menu I was so high.

First come dips – glorious, fluffy, colourful dips. Mevsim tabaği, hibeş, tarama, zeytinyağli sebzeler, cacik, and atom. Let me translate. Mevsim tabaği is a seasonal plate that this time consisted of melon, olives and cucumber with half a lime. Weird, sorta fun, bit kitsch, I’m into it. Hibeş, a creamy dip reminiscent of a thin hummus, was good but not as good as the atom, a cold dip made from strained buffalo milk yoghurt, topped with hot spices and peppers fried in butter. She was the winner in both taste and visual appeal, seeing as she’s become the muse of all press imagery.

Moving on, the tarama, ie cured fish roe, was light and rich and salty; the cacik was fresh and lightly garlicy, a friend to tatziki, an easy one to revisit, while the zeytinyağli sebzeler (bean-like vegetables braised in olive oil) was a pleasant contribution atop dips for when they started to feel a bit samey on the palate.

Dinner bookings are full until next month, and everyone with a pulse has got one lined up.

Just as I started to get ever so slightly bored of filling up on yoghurt and bread (not a bad problem), Bulghur Koftesi and pazi kavurma arrived. We began this game of tetris, placing dips atop napkin dispensers. I thought to myself that this was one of the first times that I was actually excited that there wasn’t enough space on the table. Usually I become quite irritated: why couldn’t they have waited? Can’t they take some of this away? Shouldn’t they get bigger tables for all of these damn small plates? Nope. I did not want them to wait, I did not want them to take anything away, and the tables are the perfect size.

The pazi kavurma arrived sizzling, boiling hot, spitting oil and scent at everything on the table. Bulghur Koftesi, because everything good comes in deep-fried balls. Those were all the favourites. The subsequent main platter of köftem tavuk şiş, and patates kizartmasi was good; it was satisfying, a generous portion of protein and carbs et al but ultimately, all those little plates that made me spiral into a smooth-brained vertical of bliss are simply difficult to top. To make matters even more pleasant, the meal ends with tea served in tulip-shaped glasses with a side of sticky, gooey, sweet baklava served out of a silver tray tableside.

All those little plates that made me spiral into a smooth-brained vertical of bliss are simply difficult to top.

Verdict

In all my elation, in all the pleasant smells and tastes and feelings, I decided to look around once more, two hours since the last time. I’d been so zeroed in on the conversation, on the food, that I hadn’t realised the dining room had shifted from light to night — new faces, new turns. The 8 pm crowd had begun to eat, and I relived the feeling of looking around Kismet at 6, except this time I had the context of the meal sitting heavy in my stomach. Nothing had changed; everything had changed. Different faces and stages of dining, but all the same in the sense that it was organisedly heaving, everyone was here, everyone was happy, everyone had bottles of wine, every table was full of both food and of people and brimming with this overwhelming, goosebump-inducing glee. Kismet is evidence, a corroboration of the aforementioned statement: Londoners care about restaurants. They showed up for Kismet, and Kismet’s returned the favour.