A Yemeni Feast With Smoke in Its Bones at Bab Al Yemen
A Yemeni Feast With Smoke in Its Bones at Bab Al Yemen
I’ve Been to Bab Al Yemen Twice and I’d Return for the Lamb Alone
Bab Al Yemen might be one of London’s best restaurants for smoked Arabian food, and somehow it seems to have escaped the attention of London’s mainstream restaurant press.
The restaurant is already busy, and clearly well loved by people who know it. But you wouldn’t necessarily know that from reading London’s restaurant pages. There seems to be little of the usual glossy-paper frenzy or breathless coverage telling everyone where they should be eating next. Just a restaurant that’s seemingly built a loyal following without needing the mainstream press to tell people how good it is.
And that’s why it feels exciting. Bab Al Yemen doesn’t need the choreography of a hot new opening because the food already has its own rhythm: generous, unpolished, full-flavoured, and able to make half the city’s glossy small plates look ridiculous.
Yemeni food is built for this kind of satisfaction: slow-cooked meat, fragrant rice, warm bread for tearing and scooping, sharp sauces, and broths that taste inherited rather than invented.
Quick info on Bab Al Yemen
- Restaurant: Bab Al Yemen
- Where: Edgware Road, London
- Cuisine: Yemeni
- Must order: Lamb mandi, shorba, mixed cheese motabaq
- Price: Around £25 per person
- Halal: All meat is halal and no alcohol is served
- Good to know: Portions are huge
- Details: Party of 2. Meal paid for by us independently
Find out more in the full Bab Al Yemen restaurant review below.
The room is loud, but the welcome is warm
Bab Al Yemen isn’t aiming for quiet luxury. There are neon signs, LED backlighting, faux black marble and far too many spotlights, alongside tables, booths, chairs and traditional Yemeni-style floor seating.
Still, the room quickly becomes beside the point. Service is fast and friendly, the welcome is warm, and food arrives in generous portions.
The free shorba tells you what kind of meal this is
At Bab Al Yemen, after you’ve ordered from the menu, they bring you bowls of sunshine-yellow shorba (broth).
We haven’t ordered the shorba – it simply appears, free of charge. But it’s not a throwaway extra. The shorba is cloudy, meaty and deeply savoury, with flavour drawn slowly from bone, fat, spice and time.
It tastes old-fashioned in the best possible way. Rooted. The kind of broth that feels like it belongs to someone’s grandmother, made to steady you, warm you and open your appetite before the real eating begins.
Somewhere else, this would be bottled and sold as ancestral broth for a silly price.
At Bab Al Yemen, they just give it to you, in what might be the warmest welcome.
The cheese motabaq is molten, salty and impossible to leave
The mixed cheese motabaq is bigger than expected, which becomes a theme at Bab Al Yemen.
Motabaq means folded, and is formed of thin bread folded around a hot middle of mozzarella, cheddar and feta. It’s stretchy, salty and moreish. There isn’t an absurd amount of cheese stuffed inside; the ratio is just right, enough to make the middle properly oozy without overwhelming the thin layers of bread.
Dip it into the little tomato sauce pots (also brought out for free) for maximum punch. The sauce cuts through the richness, adds brightness and makes it dangerously easy to keep picking long after you should be saving room for the lamb.
The lamb mandi carries smoke through every grain of rice
The lamb mandi is the reason to eat at Bab Al Yemen.
It arrives as soft pieces of lamb over rice, scattered with crispy onions and carrying a deep charcoal smoke that runs through the whole dish. Smoke in the lamb, smoke in the rice, smoke in the fat; the sort of flavour that feels slow, patient and impossible to fake.
The lamb pulls apart softly, with almost no effort. Each bite has warmth, spice, meatiness and that barbecue depth, while the bouncy rice catches the juices and smoke.
It’s an example of why we eat out – you’d never be able to recreate the smokiness at home – the way it bounds through every part of the dish.
The chicken madfoon is good, but the lamb wins
We also order the chicken madfoon, wrapped in banana leaf and served over rice. It’s tender, fragrant and enjoyable, with warm spices and a gentle sweetness from the leaf.
And while it is all these things, it’s still not as good as that gorgeously smoked lamb mandi.
The chicken is quieter and softer, while the lamb has that smoky, memorable pull that makes you keep going back.
There’s also a more fundamental difference between them: the madfoon tastes like something you could conceivably make well at home. It’s nice, but that’s about as excited as I get about it. The mandi, with smoke running through the lamb, fat and rice, feels almost impossible to replicate without the right equipment and hours of work. That’s the dish I’m coming here for.
If you’re choosing one main, choose the lamb.
The melawah bread is huge for a reason
The melawah bread arrives looking faintly absurd, in the best possible way.
It’s huge enough to need a comparison photo next to my husband’s face, which I consider useful journalism.
But it’s not just big for theatre. It is thin and crisp in places, soft and squidgy in others, strong enough to scoop lamb and rice but pliable enough to fold around sauce and meat.
The lemon mint drink cuts through the smoke
The lemon mint drink is icy, aggressively lemony and sharply minty.
With food this smoky and meaty, you need something bright and fierce on the table. Think halal mojito, but more useful.
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Bab Al Yemen is fully halal
All the meat at Bab Al Yemen restaurant is halal and no alcohol is served, so there is no awkward checking, no hidden sauce anxiety, and no crossing off half the menu before you begin.
You can just order, which is sometimes the greatest luxury.
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Final thoughts on Bab Al Yemen
Lunch at Bab Al Yemen costs around £25 per person, and London should be embarrassed by how much food and flavour that buys you here.
There are only two of us, but what we order could feed four: free shorba, cheese motabaq, lamb mandi, chicken madfoon, huge melawah bread, sharp lemon mint drinks, sauces and loads of rice.
Next time, I wouldn’t order two rice dishes. I’d get the lamb mandi again, then add one of the stews so there’s something saucy to drag that enormous melawah through. You’ll probably still order too much, but that isn’t much of a problem here as the food travels brilliantly, and the leftovers make an excellent lunch the next day.
The main papers and restaurant reviewers don’t seem to have paid Bab Al Yemen much attention, but the people filling its tables clearly have. And that’s what I like most about it. This isn’t an undiscovered gem waiting for a glowing newspaper review to put it on the map. It’s already feeding people extremely well, without any of the usual fanfare. It has what so many restaurants try to manufacture: generosity, warmth, flavour, and food with smoke in its bones.
I’ve already been twice. And at £25 a head, with cooking this good, going back feels obvious.
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Bab Al Yemen restaurant review
Address – 143 Edgware Rd, Tyburnia, London W2 2HR
Nearest Tube – Paddington
