Kandoo really can do it

This review was first published in December 2001

Any restaurateur feeling the pinch in these recessionary times could do worse than take a leaf out of Kandoo's book.

By putting a chef in the window, who industriously crafts sesame-studded flat breads before baking them in a ferociously hot, blue-mosaic, beehive-shaped oven (Kandoo is Persian for beehive), they've created instant theatre.

Every passer-by stops to watch; people peer from the top deck of buses; drivers crane their necks. But once it hooks you in, does Kandoo deliver on the promise? You betcha.

Despite being a very low-key, low-budget, staffed-bythe-owner-and-a-girl-from-Central-Europe kind of place, the food here is absolutely divine - it takes staples such as hummus and the humble kebab and turns them into things of great beauty.

The best way to get the full gamut of excellence is to go for the mixed dishes: a tray of mixed mezes delivers subtle, silky hummus; a tangy gloop of aubergine and onion; 'salad olivieh' - an unprepossessing but delicious paste of potatoes, pickles, olives and egg; and mast-omoozir, dense creamy yoghurt with a startlingly intense blast of wild garlic.

Everything about the main courses is praiseworthy: the perfect fluffy saffron and plain rice served, as is traditional, with pats of butter to melt and lemony sumac spice to season; chicken marinated until almost impossibly tender; lamb - chunks, fillet and amazingly moist kofta - char-blasted into melting, savoury submission. Even better, since it's BYO, you'll be hard pushed to spend £20 a head. And, oh, that bread...

Kandoo
Edgware Road, London, W2 1EJ