Problem
What should I order in a Lebanese Restaurant?A Lebanese restaurant in London, England. My family went to Lettakia, which has a Lebanese chef and a Syrian owner.
Answer
The menu is much the same as other Middle Eastern and Eastern Mediterranean restaurants, Greek, Turkish, Israeli, and food you will find in take away places in the UK and in UK restaurants and supermrkets, Going clockwise around the Mediterranean coast on a map you see Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel., On a Greek holiday you will see stuffed vine leaves. In a UK supermarket such as Tesco Express you will find humous on the vegetable section, and in a large Tesco in cosmopolitan Harrow you will find three varieties of humours.
Lebanese Bread
The bread is distinctive, like a flattened balloon with an empty centre. A bit like pitta, but more crisp than doughy.
Hot bread at Latakia Lebanese Restaurant Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.
Free bibles of pickles and olives. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.
Free Nibbles
Lettakia restaurant is small but on a busy weekend evening it is buzzing, nosy with families and small groups. The chef and owner and the blonde who serves were busy constantly walking up and down and serving tables. As we sat down the chef nodded to the server who brought up the menu and very quickly a plate of pickled including large olives. The lurid purple coloured items turned out to be bland. So, if you are not into acidic pickles, pick the purple pieces.
Next small round pieces of hot bread appeared, followed by three small dips.
Mixed Starter
We were having a family meal with one person likely to arrive late. So we took the easy option. A mixed hors d'oovre starter and a mixed grill main course. Any doubts we had were immediately waylaid by the fact that the member of staff near the door immediately greeted us and remembered us because we had phoned to book a table.
Wines
We found the wine list on the back of the menu, a good selection of wines. Lebanon in the Sixites was famous for being a country where Moslems and Christians were co-operating well. Then the politics flipped, like turning over a spoon, from yin to yan. But in the restaurant you are transported back to the good old days when everybody mixed happily, within the country, and with the neighbours and visitors from outside. Although Moslems and Jews traditionally don't drink much wine, both Lebanon and Israel, like Greece, produce wines. Any doubts we had as to whether they would serve wine were allayed by a picture of the restaurant on their website showing wine bottles on the counter at the back.
I recall a story about how a vineyard in Lebanon during fighting had to transport wine across a battle zone. They succeeded in getting the wine to its destination.
Prosecco (italian) wine, and water with a slice of lemon at Latakia restaurant. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.
Red Lebanese wine at Lattakia Lebanese restaurant. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.
Lebanese Red Wine Expertise
Lebanese wine was well known to us. What our tour qualifications? Our family includes one wine buff. (He has Wine and Spirit Education Trust qualifications - studying wine daily for the last four or five years and writing a book on wine) was delighted to see well known names of red Lebanese wine.
White Wines For All
I am a comparative wine amateur (me - WSET level one, which is only equivalent of NVQ and about 24 hours of study from a books with self administered tests at the end of each chapter,a six hour day of tasting and tuition ending with a multiple choice test. Plus decades of visiting a vineyards and wineries in France, Germany, UK, Australia, South Africa, Spain but not yet Lebanon. I was happy to see both Prosecco (white sparkling from Italy) and Rose on the menu. I like white and rose wine, low alcohol, and sweet wines which are low alcohol. So between us our family covers the spectrum of tastes, from the cheap and cheerful to the connoisseur.
The reds and wines were not impressive, but good enough. The bread was hot. The food was varied and colourful, a mixtures or tastes and textures.
Warm Welcome and Fast, Friendly Service
The speed and warmth of service was absolutely what made our visit. They were happy to leave us to talk, or to chat.
Noise
The place is noisy, hard floors, wooden tables, bad walls, all echoing. You can hardly hear yourselves speak. A bit like Italin restaurants with their tile floors.
On the other hand, if you want a private conversation, despite talking loudly, nobody else can hear you and you cannot even tell what language they are talking because there is such a buzz.
The management are thinking of adding murals, we suggested tapestries or curtains to dampen the noise. Its easier for a restaurant to keep tables and floors clean, and cheaper, if they don't have tablecloths and carpets. tapestries and curtains would not require daily cleaning, the cost and work.
The Price You Pay, The Value You Get
Free food and drink to start make you feel welcome, and that you are getting good value, despite what look like medium to high prices.
I noticed that the rose wine, Pinot Grigio, was about £4.50, whilst the Prosecco was about £6.50. However, the Prosecco with its hint of teeny bubbles seemed a generous size and lasted through the meal.
The menu wording amused me. Cuppacino. Yes, a cuppa. E s s e p r e s s o.
I had to insert spaces because my fussy and helpful spell checker instantly changes the war to the more popular Italian spelling.
Main Course, Mixed Grill
The stuffed vine leaves roved popular. One diner said he had never liked stuffed vine leaves before but this time he did. We also liked the chicken cubes, tasty and succulent. The piece of falafel seemed overcooked and dry. But all in all, something good for everyone.
Hatch End, Hot Restaurant Location
Hatch End, just along from Pinner, is a high street full of Mediterranean restaurants, The other restaurants in hatch End are italian (Fellini, Xasa Misa, Teresa, Dolce Vita), Greek (Mosfilo), Turkish (Izgara which means grill), B & K - Jewish style although not kosher, run by Greeks) also with a mixed hors soever starter featuring the ubiquitous humous). (If anybody is reading this and their first language is not English, ubiquitous means found everywhere.
Open Plan Kitchen
I loved the archway over the kitchen at the back. A visible kitchen has several advantages. It reassures you that the kitchen is not doing unhygienic things which nobody can see. You feel the chefs are part of the restaurant. In a small restaurant, the place seems larger, with longer sight lines.
The other nice touches were
1 The refills of hot bread.
2 The small complimentary baklavas, one for each of us, on cocktail sticks. The cocktail sticks doubled as toothpicks - in most places you have to ask. Here the toothpick was on the empty plate just when you need it at the end of the meal.
Baklavas at Latakia Lebanese Restaurant. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.
Baklavas
I was tempted to ask for the second of the two desserts. But we had already had the baklava, and the Leanes coffee (which I suspected was my favourite, which I know as Turkish coffee, or Greek coffee, the sludgy sort. But it was not ideal as we would have liked decaff as we all needed an early night.
The manager had asked if everything was all right twice during the meal. The manager was by the door holding it open for us as we left.
Wrapped Leftovers
When I asked for leftovers from the generous size starter, this was immediately wrapped up and brought to us. You would think this would happen everywhere. Yet it doesn't. I have visit restaurants of a restaurant in Hatch End which went out of business, where the manager looked at me suspiciously when I asked for some food to be wrapped up and said, "We don't know what you are doing to do with it." In case the restaurant say they have no containers, I carry my own. No point in being overweight from trying to finish everything on your place.
When I lived in America, coming from the UK, I was constantly gratified by the huge portions and the fact that every restaurant large or small, would wrap up your leftovers, often not waiting to e asked but volunteering to do so. All part of the service. (And less for them to clear, less waste in their bins attracting insects and rats.)
Website Menu
Lattaki, Hatch End. Their menu is on their website, if you want to check that there's something you like, or if you want translations, ingredients, or to find recipes to try out the food for yourself at home before or after a visit.
We left with the feeling that if we returned regularly we would become friends with the management. next time we will look at the menu and make some more adventurous choices. In fact, why wait until the last moment and risk not having time. I shall look at their menu again this weekend. I might even check some recipes online.
Finding Latakia restaurant, Hatch End.
How do ou find them? If you are driving into Hatch End from Pinner or along the Uxbridge road from Uxbridge or Northwood, Serrata restaurant is fist on the right. The slip road is one way so you will have to go beyond the immediate entrance to the next one, or even to the gar end and drive back.
Mrs Beeton Plaque, Hatch End. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.
Mrs Beeton Plaque
Notice the plaque to cookery writer Mrs Beeton on the outside. She wrote the pioneering Book of Household Management, setting the custom of writing ingredients and utensils at the top of a recipe. She lived in the 19900s. Her books are still published today, along with biographies. She was married to a publisher and sadly died young after childbirth, but not before doing more, achieving more, for herself, her family business and the world in her short life than most people do in a longer life.
Latakia has been in business less than a year. I hope they last many years more, adding variety to Hatch End, which was described in a local newspaper as Restaurant capital of north west lOndon.
Decor
The decor is subtly Lebanese with five lace effect metal hanging lamps in a tea drop shape providing ample light.
Arch
Their restaurant fascia features an arch.
Lattakia restaurant with arch. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.
Latakia business card with arch. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.
The same arch is on their business card.
Latakia Restaurant,
513 Uxbridge Road
Hatch End
Middlesex
HA5 4JS
Tel: 0208 428 9973
Email; info@lattakia.co.uk
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. I have many mor posts and pictures of restaurants in Hatch End and around the world. Please follow me here or on Facebook or Twitter, or Link to me on Linked in, or watch me talking bout restaurant etiquette on YouTube and share links to my posts with your family and friends and suites colleagues.
(More websites to be added later. See next post for Latakia in Syria)
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Lattakia restaurant with arch. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.
