There is no shortage of Turkish restaurants in London and my recent trip to Istanbul made me realise there’s no shortage of good Turkish restaurants in Landon. In reality, we are quite blessed to have really good Turkish food in this city. This particular place, Aziziye Restaurant, that I will review today stood for me for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it is located in a mosque! Yes, you read that right. The mosque and the restaurant share the same building (and the butcher). Secondly, they have on the floor seating, which was different for a Turkish restaurant. I feel this is more of an Arab thing. How was the experience and how does it compare to our favourite Turkish – Gokyuzu? Read on to find out.
What we ordered
Platter for 2: hummus, cacik, ezme salad, adana kebab, lamb shish, chicken shish, 4 lamb ribs, 4 chicken wings and 2 lamb chops. Served with rice and salad. This cost £31.95 and even though it was supposed to be for 2, there were four of us and it was sufficient.
Lahmacun – £3.
Katmer – £6.50
Our experience
Let’s talk about the food first. The lahmacun came out first and this was delicious. Sometimes we find the meat is a tad meaty, but this had it the perfect taste. Couple lahmacun with a sprinkle of lemon and salad always and you have yourself perfect bites. Then came out the platter. As you can see the presentation was on point as is usually with meat platters in Turkish restaurants. In all honesty, all meats were perfectly spiced and they all had that wonderful smoky grilled flavour and weren’t meaty at all. If anything, the ribs were slightly meaty, but that was ever so slightly. It was hard to choose a favourite from the platter and I think we all had different answers as to which was the favourite, but we all agreed that everything was consistently good. Finally, we wanted to finish off our meal with a kunafa, but they were out (even though it was Saturday lunch time only – a bit early to be out of the most popular dessert). So, we ordered the Katmer instead. This was our first time trying this dessert. Katmer is supposedly one of the oldest Turkish desserts there is. What is it? Crispy phyllo dough that is folded and within it is pistachios and clotted cream. We all loved it. It wasn’t overly sweet as some other Turkish desserts can be and the crunch combined with the cream was dreamy. A must try! Overall, the food served here was very good quality. We would definitely return and recommend it to others too. Is it better or on par with Gokyuzu? No, not for us. Gokyuzu is still on another level. However, the fact that Aziziye don’t serve alcohol (and Gokyuzu does), this gives this place some brownie points over Gokyuzu.
The Mosque and on the floor seating
Now, let’s talk about the two intriguing things that attracted me to Aziziye initially. The fact that the restaurant and the mosque share the same building is so refreshing and it makes for a family friendly atmosphere. Also, it makes it easy to pray and not have the headache of having to seek out a mosque. I loved this convenience and family friendly nature of the restaurant. Top marks for this! The second thing was the floor seating. As mentioned, this isn’t common with Turkish restaurants (I haven’t seen any anyway). The booths are different sizes depending on your group size of course. Strangely, we were sat in a very small one even though there was four of us. You can literally squeeze in 4 people in that one. So, no room to play around with. I found this strange considering the restaurant was empty. We could’ve and should’ve been placed in a bigger booth. Also, with there being a floor table in the booth too, it kind of took up a lot of space unnecessarily. The way Arabs do it is you eat directly off the floor without the need for a table. Adding the table just takes away from the leg room and just makes it uncomfortable. There’s a small TV in the booth; I think playing some restaurant related videos on that would’ve been a nice touch. We saw a TikTok video where there’s shoe space in the booth and a button to call the servers. But we saw neither of those things in our booth. Saying all that, once we sat down and were comfortable, we really enjoyed the experience. It was comfortable and private. It felt like a unique dining experience.
Overall, it was a wonderful experience and something I’d happily return for and recommend others to too. And for what you pay, you definitely get a lot more for your money here than at some of the other Turkish joints in the capital. A unique Turkish dining experience in the city of London. Go visit Aziziye as soon as you can!
Getting there
Nearest station: Dalston Junction or Stoke Newington (both about a 14 minute walk)
Nearest mosque: Azizye Mosque (part of the restaurant building!)
Parking: Side roads are free evenings, after 1:30 on Saturday and all day Sunday. If arriving before 1:30 on a Saturday, Amhurst Road is a pay and display.
