Photograph: Feast/The Guardian
In a bumpy restaurant landscape, Green Lanes in Haringey, north London, with its glut of Turkish-Cypriot restaurants, cafes and baklava shops, remains pretty much a constant. Anyone who has ever passed through the capital seems to have a Green Lanes story involving plates of sweet sobiyet and kadayif with mint tea at Antepliler, or a night in Diyarbakir Kitchen featuring cold Efes beers and hot mangal grills. Places round here open for breakfast and close long after midnight, and operate seven days a week, too.
The Green Lanes scene may have opened up in recent years to include Kurdish and Bulgarian flavours, but its vibe remains largely unaltered: there are no frustrating tasting menus, no minuscule sharing plates, no pretension – and no chance of leaving hungry. At Gökyüzü, for instance, established in 1999, we went for an embarrassingly early dinner, imagining that we’d be eating pide and lahmacun in an empty restaurant with bored waiters and tumbleweed. But here’s the thing: Green Lanes is never really quiet. At 5.45pm on a Tuesday, Gökyüzü is in a reassuring state of bedlam: tables are full, and there are families everywhere – bring your babies, bring your mothers-in-law. Sharing platters of lamb shish, adana kebabs and chicken wings are in full swing, bowls of dressed leaves and baskets of fresh bread are being delivered to tables, while trayloads of yoghurty ayran are swept across the floor.
