Pary Baban's Nandine
I did not set out to be a mommy blogger but you should know that this week’s restaurant was going to be Dara Klein’s Tiella until a trip to A&E and a child on crutches saw me cancel pretty much all my plans for the week. Rather than skip a post, I took advantage of the one thing I hadn’t cancelled: a trip to the White Bear Theatre in Kennington to see The Name by Nobel winner Jon Fosse (the most performed Norwegian playwright after Ibsen).
The play was excellent and, thrillingly, Father, my favourite character, now follows me on Instagram. Perhaps he’ll read this and take the company to Nandine, Pary Baban’s Kurdish restaurant in nearby Camberwell?
I first started hearing about Nandine – ‘kitchen’ in Kurdish – in maybe 2018 when it was in Vice, or maybe in 2019 when Pary, her husband Pola, and their two boys Rang and Raman opened their restaurant on Camberwell Church Street and it picked up a few reviews (Evening Standard, Eater, Observer). Pary and Pola arrived in London in 1995, Pary having been forced to flee her home in Qaladze, now Iraqi Kurdistan, in 1989, trekking from village to village in search of safety. She made a record of recipes she came across on the way and still has them in a book she keeps a Nandine. Pary and Pola opened a newsagents kiosk in Elephant and Castle, adding a sandwich shop in 2012, then a café on Vestry Road in Camberwell in 2016, followed by Nandine itself in 2019.
The menu is everything I walk into a restaurant and hope to find. I love the hand-drawn Nandine logo on the front for a start but even more so all the words I’ve never seen before like dandok and tarêh and yaprax and kuzala and xayar. A few dishes I sort of half know from Turkish or Iranian or Syrian restaurants but with a mix of unexpected flavours like dill, qazwan (wild pistachio), dried lime, apple, walnuts and chard.
It was a hot night, I ate lightly: xayar û mast, a strained yoghurt, cucumber and garlic dip with apple, dill, pomegranate and qazwan oil; kubba, three torpedo-shaped fried dumplings with a crispy outer shell made of rice stuffed with minced beef; and dried lime ice cream with syrupy lime glaze and candied walnuts.
There’s loads more I wanted. Everything I had was delicious and who can argue with £30.94 for everything, food, glass of wine, service? I spent £50 on my entire night out for dinner and a show! In London!
I admit I was in a sensationally good mood even before I got there. South East London on a hot summer night is so sticky and sweaty and sexy and everybody looked so young and cool. It reminded me of going to Waly Fay in Paris a couple of summers ago. Jonathan Nunn in one of his Eater guides invokes New York: “If London was New York, then this Kurdish cafe would be the subject of food pilgrimages and glossy weekend magazine features…” Believe him if you don’t believe me!
If you’ve been reading this Substack for a while, you’ll know I like funny little handbuilt restaurants that evolve over time. This is one such, with crazy shelves and a weird bunk bed-slash-table set-up and a blazing hot grill that left me as patinated as the furniture by the end of the night. The extraction sucks and the grim Portuguese red needs to go in the fridge stat, but, other than that, no notes. Easily one of the best places I’ve been to this year.
Xayar u Mast, £7.50
Kubba, £9
Dried Lime Ice Cream, £5.50
Glass Vinho Lisboa Tinto, £5.50
Nandine, 45 Camberwell Church Street, London, SE5 8TR