Black Axe Mangal: An experience for the eyes, ears and certainly the palate

Turkish-inspired with a rock'n roll background
Fay Maschler10 December 2017

One review of BAM on Highbury roundabout remarked prissily that you can’t adjust the volume on your palate. It then occurred to me that the relentless heavy-metal music that prohibits meaningful — or any — conversation actually works to balance the smack of roaring flavours and the deafening colours. Just forget talking and start by drinking cocktails. Solid family man chef/patron Lee Tiernan, who fronts the black, wood-fired, iron-clad metal oven decorated with tributes to the band Kiss, worked for 10 years at St John, finishing as head chef at St John Bread & Wine in Spitalfields. Like many of his generation he is well travelled, soaking up influences, stratagems and spices like a wily sponge. For what I describe generically as pimped-up lahmacun, one of the breads incorporating potato and spelt flour, is inspired by San Francisco’s Tartine Bakery. If you get nervous around offal, cunning accoutrements with the meats and the clout of chili will dispel that. More decorous assemblies are also offered. Consider squid ink flatbread topped with an egg yolk literally — and silently — glittering.

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