Lilienblum, near Old Street in east London, is reputed Israeli chef Eyal Shani’s most recent opening. It’s much swankier than Miznon, his pitta restaurant in Soho and Notting Hill, but his chaotic spirit has not been quashed.
You may recall from my visit to Miznon last year that Shani leans towards purple prose when writing menus; his dishes read like the late Mark E Smith from The Fall performing beat poetry. “Six spicy instruments that will swirl your soul,” shouts the menu, describing what transpires to be a mixed plate of runny, oily, meze-type dipping things hewn out of roast red peppers, chopped green pepper and spins on matbucha, some of them hot with aleppo pepper. I’d love to tell you the nitty gritty of what was on that delightful plate, but, like much at Lilienblum (and at Miznon, for that matter), you have to order and hope for the best.
Indeed, the bright, helpful servers are trained to translate, which must be exhausting, but then the flurry of terms in a noisy room just adds to the dishes’ mystery. The “Six Spicy Instruments” did not come with bread, so I ordered some called “It’s a very bad idea to order this but there will be no regrets”, which revealed itself to be two pieces of crunchy, firm focaccia topped with a generous quenelle of cream cheese and covered in honey and pouring cream. It was richer than any dessert, completely irresistible and useless for the task of dipping in meze (unless, that is, you happen to be wearing spongeable coveralls).
Nothing at Lilienblum is straightforward, but what saves it from being annoying is the cooking – both Shani’s vision and head chef Oren King’s skill and judicious use of flavour. King has previously worked at the likes of Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, Roka and Hide, and that level of opulence and attention to detail is here in the extremely good and spicy mesabaha of lima beans and hard-boiled egg, and in the vast terrine of aubergine “melanzana”, which leaves the stuff I’ve eaten at a thousand Italian restaurants looking awkward. King is running a sort of elegant, earthy, Ottolenghi mashup of Honey & Co and The Palomar, with a menu and vision by Shani, who writes dish descriptions like someone shouting their sitcom ideas at you from the back of a dance tent. Somehow, it all works.
Somewhere during my first visit to Lilienblum, just as happened when I went to Miznon, I was already tucking it up my sleeve as somewhere to direct people to for the straightforward reason that the food tastes very good. There’s a cocktail list with Eyal martinis at £12 a pop; the house white is a viognier at £35 a bottle, and there is sparkling Israeli pet nat for £65.
This is a capacious place suitable for groups needing somewhere civilised to hang out around the bunfight of weekend Old Street/Shoreditch, but here it’s the food that brings the mayhem. We had the hamachi sashimi, billed on the menu as, “I trained for years to cut sashimi like this”, and which came in a rather subtle, ponzu-style dressing. From the cheaper end of the menu, we ordered the minute steak tahini, which was a pile of meat dripping in hulled sesame with more chopped tomatoes. It was tasty, albeit rather cheap-and-cheerful feeling for a relatively affordable £22; after that, the likes of lamb chops with salat aravi leap up to £48, but that’s par for the course when eating in nice places these days.
Desserts, however, are a very reasonable £8, and completely worth saving room for. A honking great piece of lemony pistachio cake with a delightful, damp, raspberry-embossed bottom came with lots of fresh cream and more fresh raspberries. It was clearly homemade that day, and for that I was very grateful. Same, too, for the naked chocolate cake;, a thick, exuberantly rich, flourless rib-sticker that comes with more fresh cream garnished with strawberries. The chocolate mousse is accompanied by fresh, warm, salted butter cookies that are almost unbearably good. Chef sent apologies that his Basque cheesecake hadn’t quite set and wasn’t available that night, and I’ve since thought about that cheesecake a lot.
In a restaurant landscape increasingly filled with dessert lists that translate as “eat up and get out”, there is a definite reach here to make puddings as important as the “hummus just the way we like it” or the “abundance of salad brightened with chardonnay and EVOO”. Shani already has plans to open two more restaurants in London soon. You can say a lot of things about Lilienblum and Miznon, but none of those things are boring.
Lilienblum, 80 City Road, London EC1, 0208-138 2847, reservations@lilienblum.co.uk. Open lunch Tue–Fri, noon-3pm, dinner Tue-Sat 5-11.30pm (Sat 4pm-11:30pm). About £65 a head, plus drinks and service.
Comfort Eating by Grace Dent (Guardian Faber, £20). To support The Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
