Magsouf fails to fill gap

In my mission to eat my way around the world, I've sadly failed on the Iraqi front - for fairly obvious reasons. So Knightsbridge's Masgouf House looked like it might fill a bit of a gap.

Or maybe not. Half the menu appears to be amorphous Turkish/Persian/Lebanese, the other half is impenetrably Middle Eastern. Impenetrable unless, like every customer in the place except us, you are from the Middle East yourself.

Hunt and there are familiar names. So we had a collection of kibbets and bourags (as you'd imagine, spookily similar to kibbeh and bourek), fried things - potato, rice, bread - stuffed with spiced lamb, which was fresh enough but a touch samey. Mixed cold mezze brought an unremarkable, if pleasant, collection of the hummous and tabouleh variety.

More interesting were main courses: kabsa meat, a mound of scented rice studded with chickpeas, preserved lemon and a bit-too-authentic gnarly bits of lamb; 'stew fasoulia', an improbably scarlet and savoury casserole of lamb and white beans. Wimping out with a chicken breast taook (sic) brought succulent meat, heady with lemon sumac. Masgouf, it turns out, is roast fish eaten by Iraqi Jews. Should have had that.

When we left, there was a queue of veiled women and shiny-trousered men snaking out the door. An intensely 'are we in London?' experience.

Meal for two with wine, water and service costs about £70. 75 Knightsbridge SW1. Tel: 020 7235 3888. Tube: Knightsbridge

Masgouf
Knightsbridge, London, SW1X 7RB