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The only restaurant in London with floorboards covered in phallic imagery and an OTT oven painted with images from cult 1979 movie ‘The Warriors’ (it was rock ’n’ roll legends Kiss before that), Black Axe Mangal managed to a meld a heavy metal aesthetic with some seriously decent meat cooking and massive flavours from chef owner Lee Tiernan – an acolyte of St John – ever since opening in Islington in 2015.
But aside from a handful of exceptional meal kits featuring its famous lamb offal flatbread, mapo tofu and grilled hispi cabbage with fermented shrimp butter and seaweed, BAM was relatively quiet during lockdown, refraining from re-opening or from pivoting to takeaway sandwiches. In fact, plenty of us thought that it might not be coming back at all. Until now.
This week an announcement was made via Black Axe Mangal’s Instagram account explaining that the Highbury Corner hero is back open in business and will be ready for bookings via Resy on September 22. Thank goodness.
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Information is currently scant on what the full menu offering or specials will be, but it looks like the restaurant may well be coming back under a different name: the post says it is relaunching as the ‘restaurant formerly known as Black Axe Mangal’. Either way, we’re here for it.
It’s currently on the hunt for front-of-house staff, chefs and kitchen porters, so things are happening. It’s definitely happening.
If you can’t wait, then get your hands on Lee Tiernan’s Black Axe Mangal cookbook, which tells you how to whip up some of its signature dishes such as pig’s cheek and prune doughnuts, squid ink flatbreads with smoked cod’s roe and shrimp-encrusted pigs’ tails from the comfort of your own kitchen.
156 Canonbury Rd, London N1 2UP.
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