Six of One - A Counter to Kateh
Molana in Ealing, two Ecuadorian restaurants, a trip to Twickenham, the last restaurant in Notting Hill, and Sichuan trotters in Vauxhall.
Six of One is a column dedicated to London restaurant recommendations. In each issue, six writers will share a restaurant, bakery, cafe or takeaway spot that they believe deserves to be better known. You can find the full Six of One back catalogue here.
Today’s recommendations are from Niloufar Haidari, Ivan K. Taylor, Yanyu Sun, Thea Everett, Will Stewart, and, Saiba Haque.
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1. Molana
Iranian food has experienced something of an increase in popularity and intrigue in recent years, possibly spearheaded by the opening of places such as JKS Restaurants’s Berenjak, which sought to move away from the traditional, family-style kababi aesthetic and, in turn, cater towards a more high-end and/or, more often than not, white clientele. The ever-popular Kateh, near Paddington, meanwhile, may give you tahdig if you ask nicely, but it also has a portrait of an overthrown Iranian monarch on the wall, which may put a dampener on your appetite if you are of a certain political persuasion.
This brings me to Molana: a Persian restaurant decorated in the style of a kitsch Tehran café, located on a strip of road in Ealing that boasts no less than seven other similar establishments in a 200-metre straight line. Iranians are one of London’s smaller diasporic communities and, given the density of Persian restaurants on Uxbridge Road, you’d be forgiven for thinking they all settled here.
Persian cuisine broadly falls into two categories: grilled meats served with rice or aromatic, herby stews often studded with braised meat, also served with rice. Rice is a big deal in Iranian culture and Molana’s is perfect – fluffy, buttery, fragrant with saffron. (Pro tip: your waiter will bring you extra butter for your rice, use it!)
The koobideh – skewers of melt-in-the-mouth, fatty minced lamb seasoned only with onion, salt, pepper and a pinch of saffron – is a classic choice (and my personal favourite), although fancier cuts such as barg (thin, tender lamb fillet) are also available. The joojeh, a whole poussin that has been cut up and marinated in lemon juice, onions and saffron before being grilled over an open flame, is the closest I’ve got to the dish my aunt used to make for me during childhood trips to Iran in the summer.
No self-respecting Iranian restaurant is complete without a clay oven (tanoor) and the sangak naan that comes out of the one at Molana is always warm, soft and fresh, perfect for scooping up the creamy but sharp mast-e-moosir (yoghurt with garlic and shallots) and kashk-e-bademjan, a dip of smoked aubergine topped with crispy, fried mint and onions and drizzled with salty, tangy whey. I recommend going for a slow, late lunch and scheduling a nap afterwards. Niloufar Haidari
The Castelbar, 78 Uxbridge Rd, W13 8RA
2. Maramia Café
At the end of Golborne Road is a family-run Palestinian restaurant with a wooden door that takes both hands to push open. You’d be forgiven for missing Maramia Café. Perhaps you’ve been distracted by the music blasting out of Caia, the wine bar and open-fire restaurant next door that opened in 2022. Or perhaps you’ve been celeb-spotting at Straker’s, the infamous modern British restaurant, which opened about a hundred yards down the road in the same year. I say infamous because everyone I know who has been has emerged with horror stories, which would be risky to retell here. Infamous also because of the all-male, all-white chef line-up the restaurant posted, without irony, to its Instagram page in 2023.
Unfortunately, Notting Hill has become more and more populated with restaurants like Straker’s: expensive and increasingly impossible for ordinary people in the neighbourhood to access. When Dorian, a supposed “bistro for locals” opened on nearby Talbot Road in late 2022 it referred to itself as “anti-Notting Hill” in its press release. I assumed this meant that they were “not just another expensive new restaurant”. Last time I checked, the menu listed a ribeye steak for £130. Three minutes away on the same road is Twisaday House, a social housing block; in other words, Dorian is very much “anti-Notting Hill” insofar as it is inaccessible to so much of its local community.
Maramia, on the other hand, is different: there, you might start with its spectacular homemade bread – unusually soft and chewy around the edges, with a crunch in the middle – and pair it with the peerless aubergine and tahini dip moutabal along with hummus. Next, go for the grilled chicken wings, which make you wonder if a chicken wing grilled over charcoal might well be the pinnacle of cooking, and a complex and sumptuous mousakhan, swaddled in pastry. You’ll have spent £33. Along with the nearby Panella and Sporting Clube de Londres, Maramia Café feels like one of the last accessible restaurants in Notting Hill. If it goes, we’ll have lost a lot more than the best moutabal in west London. Ivan K. Taylor
48 Golborne Rd, W10 5PR
3. Rincon Costeno
Underneath the railway arches on the top of Walworth Road is a row of lively arcade spaces, partitioned into various businesses. At Rincon Costeno, an Ecuadorian restaurant in one of these arches, the dining room is lined with rows of tables which face a hair salon through a glass window next door. I like to sit by the wall, look across the canteen-like room and enjoy a lunch deal by myself on a weekday.
The lunch deal highlights Rincon Costeno’s special offerings in a two-course meal: a great selection of satisfying soups, accompanied by agua panela, a brown-sugar drink flavoured with mixed spices and lime, followed by a generous main course. The rib soup comes as a rich broth holding potatoes, carrots and sweetcorn in their original form, rather than blended into a thick mixture. It reminded me of the soup my family would cook in China, touched up with the Latin flavours of white onion and tomato.
Elephant and Castle is going through demographic changes, from the South American settlements here since the 1970s to the young Chinese students living in the Elephant Park towers. Yet at Rincon Costeno there is a fascinating geographical crossover: at the table next to me, a Chinese couple were sharing a bowl of papa con tripa asada – thick peanut soup with roasted tripe – with the chopsticks they’d brought themselves. I was amazed to see that they enjoyed it like a Chinese sesame broth by dipping the tripe into chilli sauce on the side. Yanyu Sun
Arch 146, Eagle Yard Arch, Hampton St, SE1 6SP
4. La Colmena
London’s Ecuadorian population has steadily been growing since the early 2000s, mostly in the boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark, Newham and Haringey where there are estimated to be around 70,000 people, many of whom have come through Spain on EU passports. La Colmena on Brixton Road doesn’t make it obvious that it is a restaurant serving Ecuadorian food, though. The sign outside reads “Latin American” and the menu on offer is not actually written down anywhere, save for in the Just Eat app.
On my first visit, the menu was verbally recited to me by one of two women chefs. I chose the soup and the rice and chicken. What arrived, for £10, was a memorable two-course lunch and drink deal. The plainness of this food is its great strength; like a portion of pie and mash or a jacket potato, this is food to leave you feeling gently looked after and full. A hearty pork soup the colour of split peas was thickened with potato, each mouthful bringing me back to life. The chicken followed – a preparation which reminded me of Caribbean brown stew chicken, minus any chilli heat – served with rice and plantain, which was sliced vertically (like a banana in a banana split) and cooked until caramelised. The jewel of the plate. A warm glass of guanabana added brightness and acidity to cut through the food.
The restaurant doesn’t strictly adhere to its advertised opening times – it’s advisable to go for lunch if you don’t want to turn up to a dropped shutter. At the weekend, you’ll find plenty more meat and fish: guatita (peanut butter tripe and potato stew), hornado (achiote-marinated pork ribs served with deeply satisfying cheesy potato cakes called llapingachos and a white corn salad) or encebollado (tuna and cassava soup). The cheese empanadas at the front counter have something of a pizza fritta about them, soft and fluffy with a doughnutty sweetness. I recommend taking some away. Thea Everett
10 Brixton Rd, SW9 6BU
5. 43 Szechuan Kitchen
At St. JOHN, trotters are understood as having “unctuous potential”. When properly braised, the collagen that comes from them will set into a magical, wobbly jelly. Like many St. JOHN cooks, I have a deep love for a pig’s foot, so when I saw a dish titled ‘Beauty Boosting Spicy Trotters’ on the menu at 43 Szechuan Kitchen, a new Sichuan restaurant in Vauxhall, I was ready for a dose of gelatine.
43 opened in January, and it neighbours stalwarts such as The Three Lions and The Canton Arms, living under the shadow of the glass jungle which has emerged in Nine Elms. But 43 has already found its new crowd. On my visit, the restaurant was full of young students, sitting beside a group of mums and a few solo diners, all tucking into different regional Chinese specialities. Of course I had to get the beauty-enhancing trotters along with some pickled cabbage fish. The pigs’ feet were piled high: sticky, bony and chewy, and covered in dry chillies and Szechuan peppercorns. The pickled cabbage fish was, likewise, a generous serving: The broth had a deep savoury funk from the pickled fermented cabbage and fragrant chunks of ginger. My plate at the end was full of congealed trotter knuckles and fish bones, a happy harmony.
I’m definitely going back for more … there’s a spicy rabbit salad, ‘lovers’s delight beef slices’ (a racier translation of the usual ‘husband and wife’ beef and tripe slices), ‘tangy intestine and vermicelli brew’ and ‘squirrel-glazed crispy fish’. If you need a glass of milk afterwards, the nearby shops in Stockwell will sell you a Portuguese chocomilk called Ucal, which, in the absence of Fergus Henderson’s beloved Fernet-Branca, works a treat. Will Stewart
43 S Lambeth Rd, SW8 1RH
6. Bami Viet
While many travel to Twickenham only for the rugby, I do so just to have lunch at Bami Vet. This Vietnamese restaurant resides in a compact location within London’s happiest (though some would say, most boring) borough and can, at times, be overlooked due to the many chain lunch spots in the area. Though the menu is on the minimal side - pho, banh mi, noodle and rice bowls – the combinatorial options are enough to sustain repeat visits, as they did when I studied nearby. Starters are done well here: spring rolls whose crisp exteriors gave way to well-seasoned fillings of pork, chicken, prawn, crab meat and vermicelli noodles, served with nước chấm, while the chicken wings in spicy honey and yuzu fish sauce (cánh gà chiên nước mắm) are nothing short of exemplary. Smothered in stir-fried onions and chillies, they are sweet, savoury and spicy, with zesty freshness coming through from the yuzu – a perfectly balanced flavour profile.
The bún bò buế, listed on the menu as Hue noodle soup, is a standout. The beef shin broth has a deep and rich flavour with layers of warmth and salty savouriness from notes of coriander seeds and fish sauce, with a subtle sweetness peeking throughout. The food at Bami Viet is inherently unpretentious and homely – a place to sit in, if you can. But if you are in a hurry, it is essential to stop by for a banh mi to take away. And when the front-of-house server Nancy asks if you want it spicy, I highly recommend you say yes. Saiba Haque
18 York St, Twickenham, TW13LD
Vittles Restaurants is a publication from Vittles dedicated to restaurant guides, reviews, and recommendations, edited by Adam Coghlan and Jonathan Nunn, and copy edited by Liz Tray.