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Please note, Baba is currently closed. Time Out Eating & Drinking editors, Feb 2017.
Tucked down a grimy side alley opposite Peckham Rye station, the late Ali Baba Juice Shack was a cultish SE15 institution. Now, its owners have upgraded to a bricks-and-mortar spot on nearby Blenheim Grove. Well, sort of: lovingly stripped-down would be a kind way of describing the space; flagrantly sparse a more honest one.
But no matter. When there are inventive cocktails on the menu, a honed selection of Levantine food zipping out of the kitchen and avante garde cellist Arthur Russell on the stereo, we’re more than happy to tolerate a sea of plywood (the grocery-style veg-box display behind the juicing station is a nice touch though).
Geed up by a decent G&T – with ‘Baba spices’ – and a glass of Duoro red, we ordered everything on the menu. It was all excellent. A plate of pickles – fennel, mushrooms, cucumber, garlic, those lurid kebab-shop peppers – were zingy and plentiful; a bowl of olives was elevated to greatness by piles of coriander seeds and dried bay; and pasta-like giant couscous with parsley, whipped feta and pomegranate was texturally banging, a tabbouleh on ’roids.
Baba ghanoush was a glorious, smoky mess: half a charcoal-grilled aubergine, slathered in lip-smackingly sweet-savoury tahini and sprinkled with toasted almonds. Best of all was a crispy, chewy flatbread topped with lamb shoulder, tart pickled garlic, creamy labneh balls and a truly poky, piquant hot sauce. In the canon of killer kebabs, this would be up there.
If I’ve one reservation, it’d be that the food lacked a bit of citrusy zing to cut through the persistent punchy flavours – a nashi pear salad with sumac came close, but no cigar – and was, maybe, a little one-note. But dammit, when the note is this pitch-perfect – and so reasonably priced – you’d be a jerk to complain.