It is considered by foodies to be one of the top restaurants in London and rated 35th best in Britain. So why does Mangal II in Dalston carry a measly 4.1 star rating on Google, down from the “gloriously mediocre” 4.3 it recently held? Ferhat Dirik, one of the brothers who runs the restaurant, writes in an excoriating newsletter to customers that he’s “had sleepless nights” stressing about bad reviews online and says every negative verdict is “an embarrassing public fart”.
It’s the changing character of London that he blames. “Gone were many of the locals and regulars. In were food tourists, creatives, big celeb names, ITK food people and, essentially, ‘the cool crowd’,” he writes. “Now, if I know anything, it’s that anyone who falls under the category above does not bother writing Google reviews.” Instead, they post Instagram stories, which are nice, but don’t help the star rating.
