Mama's Kubo
Filipino restaurant · Hampstead
Unit 5/6, Palace Court, 250 Finchley Rd, London NW3 6DN, United Kingdom
![Mama's Kubo by Mama’s Kubo [Official Photo]](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/65169716/best-value-restaurants-west-london-mamas-kubo.0.0.jpg "Mama's Kubo by Mama’s Kubo [Official Photo]")
Highlights
Filipino flavors with creative twists, known for adobo and pancit
Filipino flavors with creative twists, known for adobo and pancit
"London has a special knack of turning greyness into something engaging. On one end of the spectrum you’ve got the Barbican Estate—a breathtaking brutalist complex—and on the other, you’ve got Brent Cross—a nostalgic eyesore with a ferris wheel next to the North Circular. And, in Mama’s Kubo, the Finchley Road has a vivid injection of life. The cosy Filipino restaurant is a serene oasis that mixes warm service, big groups, and enlivening vinegary punches from its pork belly adobo. Put simply, it’s a Great Little Place on one of London’s most reliably dismal A-roads. Hectic location aside, Mama’s Kubo is a restaurant that’s very easy to get comfortable in. There are some banquet-sized tables that are perfect for big groups who are planning on tearing apart crispy pata (pork knuckle), alongside pancit, rice, and the like. Plus plenty of twos and a cushion-covered banquette, which are perfect for a low-key date night. Combined with the chummy service, it makes for a restaurant you can be as swift or as lazy as you like in. You’ll feel particularly smug when it’s hammering down outside, cars are flying past, and you’re digging into a steaming hot pile of pancit palabok—a smoky, stir-fried noodle dish of seafood, eggs, and pork crackling. The menu—split between small plates, noodles, stir-fries, stews, kare kare, and more—favours numbers. Especially as there are five-ish dishes on the specials board as well. Look out for longganisa, a smoky and garlicky homemade sausage. It’s a rarity but, if the wind is blowing the correct direction and the chef’s lottery numbers have come in, then you might see it up there. If so, order it. Similarly, get the crispy pata if it’s on. It’s a giant pork knuckle (that gives Fred Flintstone energy) with impeccable crackling, that comes with sawsawan, a salty and vinegary dipping sauce, to cut through. The best dishes at Mama’s Kubo, like the adobo or the pata, have a mix of intense salty and sour Filipino flavours. They’re the kind of dishes that can turn any grey day on its head. " - Jake Missing
"An ode to sisters, mothers and grandmothers, Mama’s Kubo takes inspiration from traditional recipes passed down to chef Rommel Bustarde and director Claudine Bleza. The extensive menu offers a taste of home for nostalgic appetites, serving dinner table staples like kare kare — stewed beef brisket, aubergine and pak choi in peanut sauce. It also has a wide array of pancit, Filipino noodle dishes, but it’s the palabok, in which they are stir-fried with prawns, squid and smoked mackerel, shows off a distinct salty flavour unique to the Philippines." - Juli Suazo
"Rommel Bustarde’s approach at Mama’s Kubo is somewhere in between, the food recognisably Filipino but looking outwards, tidying up and straightening lines of what is a notoriously riotous cuisine. A liver adobo is at the top of London’s pantheon: soft, creamy, honking with garlic, paired with an off menu garlic rice that can be felt on the breath the next morning. Sisig radiates like a sun, pig finely chopped, less heavy on the offal than other versions but with a strong crispy caramelisation of the heat of the pan. Pancit palabok is a cipher of a rich carbonara, with pancit for spaghetti, dried fish providing parmesan’s umami, pork rind for guanciale, egg the texture of tofu and then a whole load of prawns and squid. Finish with taho, layered silken tofu in a pool of lukewarm syrup, hitting all the comfort points of a morning bowl of porridge sweetened with honey." - Alexander Larman
"London’s Filipino chefs take divergent approaches: Some don’t mess, serving dishes as traditionally as possible. Others have taken the bones of Filipino cuisine and put new flesh on them, never claiming authenticity. Rommel Bustarde’s approach at Mama’s Kubo is somewhere in between, the food recognisably Filipino but looking outwards, tidying up and straightening lines of what is a notoriously riotous cuisine. A liver adobo is at the top of London’s pantheon: soft, creamy, honking with garlic, paired with an off menu garlic rice that can be felt on the breath the next morning. Sisig radiates like a sun, pig finely chopped, less heavy on the offal than other versions but with a strong crispy caramelisation of the heat of the pan. Pancit palabok is a cipher of a rich carbonara, with pancit for spaghetti, dried fish providing parmesan’s umami, pork rind for guanciale, egg the texture of tofu and then a whole load of prawns and squid. Finish with taho, layered silken tofu in a pool of lukewarm syrup, hitting all the comfort points of a morning bowl of porridge sweetened with honey." - Jonathan Nunn
"One of the best things at Mama’s Kubo is the pancit palabok, a riotous Filipino noodle dish that poses a tricky question in the manner of the Ship of Theseus — at what point does this stop being a carbonara? Of course, there’s pancit in place of spaghetti, dried fish in lieu of parmesan’s umami, pork rind for guanciale, egg instead of tofu’s texture... But then a whole load of prawns and squid make the question redundant. Obviously, the pancit is much better." - Jonathan Nunn
Jenny Racławicki
Sophie GDC
Mark Hendriksen
Ema Arvati
Jermaine H
Carla Meakin
Sam Graessle
Aashita Mirwani
Rom P.
