Sets appeal: Mangal Mondays at Berber & Q with Pitt Cue and friends

Reviewing the set meals, tasting menus and special deals available at London's top restaurants
Berber & Q and friends: the dinners will be held just once each
Ben Norum9 June 2017

For the latest in our Sets Appeal series we try the first in a run of Monday night menus put together with guest chefs at Berber & Q.

What’s the deal? Each Monday throughout June Haggerston’s Middle Eastern grill house Berber & Q will team up with top chefs and restaurants around London to lay on a special menu that pulls together influences from both sides.

First up was Oscar Holgado of Pitt Cue, or a menu which combines Middle Eastern flavours and American smokehouse-style cooking for a mangal feast with a difference.

When is it available? As each menu runs for one night only, the Pitt Cue dinner is now finished. However coming up are menus from Nicholas Balfe of Brixton’s Salon on June 12, Andrew Clarke of Brunswick House on June 19, and Ramael Scully of NOPI and Ottolenghi on June 26.

Under the arch: Berber & Q in Haggerston

What’s it like? Each menu is different, but the Pitt Cue offer was a vibrantly flavoured carnival of juicy meat, sloppy sauces and creative sides. It opened with a selection of small plates featuring a smoked cod’s roe dip and deep-fried pig’s head croquettes with apple sauce before launching into a tray of meat including an almost pâté-soft pistachio mangalitsa sausage and juicy smoked lamb shoulder. Pitt Cue’s tangy barbecue beans came on the side. A bourbon caramel baklava provided a sweet end note.

Nicholas Balfe’s menu will include BBQ pork neck with rhubarb ketchup and octopus with horseradish and nasturtiums. After that Andrew Clarke’s menu will feature an aged duck “adana” kebab made with duck skin togarashi, and hogget chops with fermented shrimp butter.

Finally Ramael Scully’s menu will include beef short rib pastrami with butterscotch horseradish sauce and sherry vinegar, and burnt miso butter chicken thighs with a walnut and pomegranate salsa.

The menus cost between £27 and £37.

Verdict The Pitt Cue menu was an absolute triumph, neatly blending the aromatic oomph of Turkish-style kebabs with the rich meatiness of American smokehouse cooking. From the looks of subsequent menus - and knowing the people behind them - future Monday meals won’t disappoint either.

Find it 338 Acton Mews, E8 4EA; berberandq.com/mangal-mondays. Buy tickets here.

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