Izgara Turkish Restaurant in dining capital of London

Izgara Turkish restaurant has opened in Hatch end. One of our local papers described Hatch End as restaurant capital of London. How many restaurants? About 18 and you can walk up and down and check the menus in the windows in a distance of about 500 yards in less than 5 minutes, if you are quick. Alphabetically: Ask, Casa Mia, Coriander, Fellini, Orama, Mosfilo, Sea Pebbles, Zia Teresa, and more, plus the places in the supermarket and arts centre. Cuisines are Greek, Indian, Italian and now Turkish at Izgara.

Will another rival restaurant cause any worries to the existing restaurants? I don't think so. The more the merrier. Another opportunity will attract more diners to the area, and offer more choice to those wondering whether to go elsewhere or stay nearby.

Izgara opens lunch time today (Monday 30 Nov 2015). It is open to the public every day including Monday when you struggle to find a restaurant open. Noon until 11.

Yes, it is a new addition to the Hatch End restaurant scene, Izgara, Turkish for grill. I confess I have struggled to remember and spell Izgara. At first I thought is a guru. Wrong.  Not two Us. Two As. Think A star, twice. The last letter is A.  So I made myself a memory aid (mnemonic). IZ G rill  A nd Really Appetising. I Z G A R A.

Izgara. Open noon Monday 30th November 2015. From noon to 11 at night. Run by the same owners as Izgara in Edgware and the team who operate the other two restaurants. 

The Hatch End manager told me his name is Shukur. Pardon, how do you pronounce it? He smiles because he's been asked before, and he has a ready answer. He says think of pronouncing it like sugar.

Where is Izgara? Two doors along from Fellini, the big indoor-outdoor Italian restaurant curving round the corner. Izgara replaces Zaza, another Italian restaurant, from the Italian group which has a restaurant in Pinner, if you are looking for them. I looked at the Zaza restaurant website to get the street number of Izgara for you but the Zaza restaurant website already says they've closed their Hatch End branch.

I'll send somebody out to stroll around Hatch End and get Izgara's street number, as I haven't time to keep researching restaurant numbers. Anyway, Hatch End is a small place. Just walk along the station side between Pickwick Walk on the corner towards the traffic lights where you cross the road and you'll find Izgara.

If you like Mediterranean food, you will like this. If you can't tell Turkish food from Lebanese, Greek, Israeli, that's fine.  You'll recognise kebab, cubed chicken and lamb, hummus (chickpeas), pink dip, tabouleh, rice, tomatoes, aubergine. 

Here's the owner  of Hatch End Izgara (right) with keen customer from Edgware branch who popped in to see the new Hatch End branch, as he was passing the night before the opening when the owner and his partner and their family were celebrating.

I'd been watching that sign, 'Izgara, Hatch End, coming soon,' for days. 

They serve Turkish coffee, Turkish wine, and a yogurt drink. I tried the Prosecco. In my opinion you can't go wrong with Prosecco.  (Ok. It's not Turkish it's Italian. But it's popular. Like cola.) Where wine is concerned, I'm not mad about dry reds and whites but if you are interested here's what the Turkish red and white wine bottles look like.

I love the lights and the ceiling.

Candles at night. Proper sea salt and peppercorns.

Here's a Turkish yogurt they use in their yogurt drink, which must be the same concept as lassi which I love in Indian restaurants. I'm always trying to add milk, yogurt and cheese to my diet to keep my teeth while and hopefully keep my bones strong.

Izgara Website

www.izgararestaurant.co.uk

And if you see what looks like a spring roll in Izgara, it's a blini, a rolled up thin pancake, with the ends folded in, filled with soft cheese.

See more pictures and facts about the food in my previous posts.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author, speaker.

See my other posts, always offbeat and entertaining, humorous, well-researched. Books on etiquette and comic poetry and more on Lulu.com and Amazon and ebooks coming soon.