The Palomar

The hubby and I spent our Friday evening with two other couples at Soho's amazing restaurant The Palomar. Make sure you reserve a table, the place was packed and gets booked up three months in advance. Organisation is definitely the key to this little gem! We passed the bar seating, which would be great for couples but not ideal for larger groups and entered the teeny little back restaurant where we were given a great roomy booth for six people. We did get lucky with our table, others did not offer quite so much space.

The menu is small and substituted with a few specials. The idea is you order plenty of dishes to share. Tapas style. As there were six of us we got stuck in and ordered lots. Absolutely definitely order the Kubanah, which is Yemeni pot baked bread served with tahini and grated tomatoes. We ended up ordering three portions. The bread was warm and filling. The beef tartar was a little dream and could just about be split six ways so everyone could have a taste. The Fattoush salad is also a must and again was large enough to all try a little morsel.

We tried two portions of the josperised aubergine, which I can thoroughly recommend as well as two of the Shakshukit, which were deconstructed kebabs with minced meat, yoghurt and tahini. The butternut squash risotto was plentiful and delicious. It was also presented really well, which added to the charm. We tried two portions of pork belly tajine that was incredibly popular with the table. The dried apricots added a sweetness to the succulent meat. The specials menu looked great and so we ordered two mini spicy chicken dishes that we shredded off the bone to share. We also tried the beef tortellini on the specials menu that was tasty.

The restaurant recommend two to three dishes per person and dishes come as and when they are ready. You can order more as you go along. The wine list is reasonably extensive with a good choice at reasonable prices for London. The cocktail list is interesting and all cocktails cost around £9. We stuck with wine although I have heard cocktails here are great so next time I will check them out.

We had two bottles of white and a bottle of red wine along with three liquors and two coffees. The bill including service was £57 per person. It sounds expensive and to be honest it is but we went to town with the food and didn't do too badly on the drinks! You could visit this restaurant and spend a lot less but would be more restricted on how much of the menu you can try. The service here was great and with a smile and more importantly they enabled us to overstay our table allocation by an hour, which was generous.

All in all this was a great little find. I would grab some friends as then you can try more dishes. Plus it's loud with excellent 80s and 90s tunes so not an ideal date restaurant anyway! Middle Eastern tapas is something a little different and I thoroughly enjoyed stepping away from the norm.