Head to Maroush for more than a classy kebab

Kebabs are the favoured food of the famous. It’s true. Amy Winehouse stopped off at kebab shop in Holloway Road when she was visiting her old man in jail. And Paris Hilton was snapped by paps as she popped into Maroush, a rather more upmarket kebab house in Knightsbridge.

Nice to think that nothing much changes. That no matter how hip, rich or talented you are, the young still reach for comfort food in times of trouble or excess. In fact, kebabs are a very inclusive food. That same fat cushion of greasy lamb-filled pitta is being eaten at kebab houses up and down the country every Saturday night. Thick discarded slices of onion are found scattered all over the pavements in the morning, like smelly confetti.

And that’s the trouble with our experience of Middle Eastern cooking: we generally only sample the high-street end of the market, usually late at night, as we jostle with drunks in bare, over-lit shops after the pubs have kicked out. Which is crazy – a bit like judging English cooking after several boozy visits to a chip shop – and may explain why Middle Eastern cuisine has never really achieved the popularity Indian cookery enjoys.

Maroush offers more than just kebabs. It’s one of a chain of eleven Lebanese restaurants scattered throughout London. Maroush II is halfway along Beauchamp Place – an exotic addition to the chichi dress shops and well-established venues such as San Lorenzo and Borscht ’n’ Tears, which seem to have been here since the year dot.

The restaurant has two floors: the takeaway kebab section is downstairs, with the familiar giant arrowhead of glistening meat turning on a spit. It’s one of life’s eternal mysteries, isn’t it – how do they make those things? What are they actually made of? But even as you ask, you’d really rather not know.

Upstairs is the restaurant proper, a dreamy interior of a place. Coloured citrine, the whole room seems bathed in a glassy lemon glow. An eclectic picture collection peppers the walls: mystery stills from forgotten films; a young James Dean. Calm pervades and there is a sense of a being in a different world and on a different time-scale. I was meeting an old friend who’s now something high-powered ‘in the City’, and I was hoping she might be able to help me make some sense of the much-heralded credit crunch.

She was much more interested in the bowl of radish, carrot, pepper and lettuce sitting on each table looking like the front cover of a gardening catalogue. There were excellent olives, too. We were feeling greedy and, since the dishes looked so healthy, went a bit overboard on the starters. Cold lentils topped with crispy fried onion would not be at the top of most people’s culinary wish list, but they were memorably delicious. As was a zingy salad made simply with chopped parsley, tomato and lemon juice. Hummus here is light years away from the stuff you pop into your supermarket trolley. These were all served with individual warm, puffed bread.

What did the financial expert think about Gordon Brown’s handling of the looming crisis and his rather ingratiating recent appearance on an American TV chat show? ‘Poor lamb,’ she said, scooping up another mound of hummus. ‘You just know he’d have been one of those children who never got chosen to join anyone’s team.’ Well, yes, but I could have worked that out myself.

Next, she ordered grilled sea bass which she said was delicate and tender and tasted like being on holiday. I decided to do a Paris and asked for a traditional kebab from downstairs. Like every other kebab I’ve ever eaten, it was robust and substantial – and a little cold, but that was my fault for asking. Most customers sensibly stick to the fresh, simple food on the menu. The place was busy, with the most cosmopolitan mix of diners I’ve seen in ages.

Coffee was viciously strong, thick and sweet – my guest said she’d return for that alone. It was served with another picture-perfect bowl of gleaming fruit and teeny little pieces of honey-soaked halvah, which has to be the sickliest pastry in the world but completely irresistible. We got up from the table feeling as stuffed as dates.