The original, and arguably the best, of the numerous Turkish restaurants clustered around Dalston’s Kingsland High Street, Mangal Ocakbasi was opened by in the late eighties by Ali Dirik, an Istanbul native who moved to London as an aspiring chef and ended up founding the first ocakbasi in the city. Better known as Mangal 1 – Dirik later left the business to open the equally well-regarded Mangal II just down the road – it’s a poky, no-frills spot that gets pretty cramped on busy nights but more than makes up for it with an inviting atmosphere, reasonable prices and no corkage BYOB policy (there’s a corner shop right opposite that does a roaring trade as a result).
Largely unchanged since it first opened – a faded Time Out review from the early ‘90s hanging in the front window attests to this – its large menu features decent renditions of all the usual sides and starters you’d expect fto see on a kebab restaurant’s menu. But the highlights, of course, is the succulent meat grilled on the enormous mangal by the entrance, which pumps its delightful smoky aromas halfway down Arcola Street. As the t-shirts sported by its masterful grill chefs put it: simply the best!
Time Out tip
This is the sort of place where you’re best off taking a large group of friends, ordering the majority of the menu to share along with an endlessly flowing wine. You’re gonna want to try all of the two dozen-or-so varieties of grilled kebabs on offer, so a proper feast is the only way to go about it.
Order this
The rich and succulent cop sis (lamb shish) and delicately garlicky, melt-in-the-mouth tavuk beyti (minced chicken in lavash bread) are killer.