The meaty taste of Yugoslavia

This review was first published in June 2001

There are several incomprehensible things on the menu at Sava: karadjordjeva, raznjiki, pljeskavica. But all you really need to know is that most of them translate as meat.

Described as a Yugoslavian restaurant - 'Our dishes are enjoyed by both Serbs and Croatians,' explained our charming host - it's no place for a squeamish vegetarian. On a sunny evening when most restaurants in the area were heaving with diners, Sava was strangely empty apart from our waitress and a gloomy chef; with a TV in the corner and dark wood panelling unrelieved by any decoration, it reeked of former-Yugoslavian mournfulness. ('We get very busy at weekends,' we were assured.)

There's a 'specials' menu offering a two-course meal for a fiver. None of this boded particularly well. But our pessimism was unfounded; everything we ordered - with the exception of some mandatory frozen chips - was good. Piquant roast peppers wrapped round herbed cream cheese and pasulj - a hearty cross between a bean soup and a stew - were sturdy and savoury starters.

Main courses were huge platters of meat. Mine looked like a bad-taste Ascot hat; it featured gorgeous chorizo-like sausage, kofta-like sausage, kebab of chicken and peppers - both good - and kebab of deliciously charred pork. My own fault, I suppose, for ordering what was translated as 'mixed grill - big'. My date's pork chop stuffed with peppers, aubergines and spinach must have come from a mutant giant porker, such was its girth.

Carnivores: enjoy. And it's reasonable, too - about £20 a head with wine.

Sava
Above the Black Bull, 358 Fulham Road, SW10 9UH