Bubala Soho
Middle Eastern restaurant · Soho
15 Poland St, London W1F 8QE, United Kingdom
Highlights
Creative meat-free Middle Eastern small plates, hummus, mushrooms, halloumi
Creative meat-free Middle Eastern small plates, hummus, mushrooms, halloumi
"Whether you’re a flexitarian, humanitarian, or disciplinarian, you should be eating at Bubala, a vegetarian restaurant on Commercial Street. Everything on the Middle Eastern menu at this understated spot is delicious, from the charred laffa flatbread and dips, to a scoop of tahini and date ice cream. It’s good-value too: you can have an excellent lunch for under £30, or get the Bubala Knows Best evening set menu for £44 for a little bit of everything." - jake missing, rianne shlebak, sinead cranna
"Marc Summers’s Tel Aviv–inspired mini-chain turns out some of the city’s best modern vegetarian cooking. Impeccable tahini-loaded hummus is a draw, alongside clever dishes like oyster mushroom skewers with tamari and coriander seed, or fried eggplant with zhoug and date syrup. It’s the kind of place to go for a vegan dinner treat, with a set menu offering multiple small dishes through three courses for 40 pounds ($49) per head." - Adam Coghlan
"Though Bubala’s food is largely Sephardic Jewish, its range of technique — particularly at its newer Soho restaurant — demonstrates skill in hummus making, Japanese grilling, and salsa macha blending. That qualifies it for this guide, which is a boon for vegetarians everywhere, given the sheer quality of the food coming from Helen Graham and Marc Summers’s kitchens." - Sejal Sukhadwala
"Bubala is a candidate for the best vegetarian restaurant in London, and amongst its more traditional Sephardic dishes, the falafel on offer matches up to the quality of the glossy labneh and silky hummus. They are herby and fragrant, served with the now classic dipping sauce combination of tahini and amba, and some piquant pickled onions for extra zing." - Joel Hart
"It’s advisable to lure a couple of mates to this beguiling, plant-filled, bastion of contemporary Sephardic cookery — if only so that ordering the entire menu becomes a sensible prospect. (If flying as a duo, opt for the house set.) Bubala’s dishes, including: ful medames, lovage pesto, yoghurt, homemade malawach; halloumi with nigella and black cumin seed honey; confit potato latkes, toum, Aleppo chilli; fried aubergine, zhoug, date syrup — may not be super fancy, but they are, unfailingly, delicious." - Suze Olbrich
