Yemen Heaven, York: ‘Very hard not to like’ – restaurant review

‘The wood-pannelling and parquet are still there’: inside at Yemen Heaven in York, previously a pub. Photograph: Richard Saker/The Observer

Yemen Heaven, 98 Walmgate, York YO1 9TL. Meze £7, large dishes £15-£21.95, desserts £6-£9, wines from £23

Some restaurants are just a nice place to go for dinner. Yemen Heaven in York is obviously that. You will eat well there. The black seeded flatbreads, the breadth of over-sized dinner plates, are soft and crisp. There’s a pleasing creaminess to the spice-dusted, oil-dribbled, tahini-rich hummus that comes topped with a single shiny black olive, the savoury equivalent of a cherry on top. But the restaurant is more than that. Much like Arabic Flavour in Aberystwyth, which I visited last year, it is both the story of exile and an act of memory. It is the product of one woman’s determination to maintain her family’s traditions; to free the country of her birth from a single narrative of war and hardship, however overwhelming that narrative might seem right now.