A bit of nip and tuck has become popular on Green Lanes. In recent years, both Gökyüzü and Diyarbakir, two of the strip’s most popular Turkish restaurants, have seen swish revamps and now fellow mangal stalwart Selale has had a facelift too.
The result? A spacious, stylish restaurant with a large glass frontage, dark velvet booths and on-trend pendant lamps. But while its interior is shiny and new, Selale’s top-notch Eastern Med dishes and award-winning Turkish kebabs are very much intact.
As with most Turkish joints, the strategy for your visit to Selale should be to visit when ravenous. The selection of grilled meats on offer is sprawling and the mezze options are pretty tempting too. Don’t miss the lahmacun (Turkish pizza). Almost A4 in size, its thin, perfectly crisp base was covered in a rich minced lamb ragù, packing little punches of cayenne pepper and smoky paprika.
Piles of tender, just-charred lamb shish also hit the spot, while the chicken iskender was another winner: succulent slithers of doner meat and chunks of soft bread doused in a silky, butter-laced tomato sauce, with a good dollop of tangy whipped yoghurt.
One thing to note: side bowls of colourful salad, bread and rice arrived in abundance but were fairly basic, as was a plate of Birds Eye-esque breaded white bait. If you haven’t got the memo yet, the kebabs are the headline act.
That said, you’d be missing a trick if you didn’t finish up with a plate of baklava. Sticky, sweet and oozing syrup – they were the stuff of sugary dreams, and some of the best I’ve ever had in London. Yes, go to Selale for the kebabs but, oh my, be sure to stay for the happy ending.