Hovarda: An Aegean fusion that’s all at sea

Rupert Street's latest launch blends Greek and Turkish cuisine with mixed results
Blurred boundaries: Hovarda brings elements from Greece and Turkey to the table
Daniel Hambury
Fay Maschler12 December 2017

Before going to the new restaurant in burgeoning Rupert Street (south) — now home to Palomar, Bubbleology, XU and soon revamped Blue Posts from the Palomar people — I look up online the meaning of the Turkish word “hovarda”. Mydictionary.net offers, among other options, profligate, rake, rascal, chaser, gadabout, libertine, vagabond. It sounds very promising.

From publicity, what I know we have been promised is “Aegean” food — a seemingly politically tactless mix of Turkish and Greek cooking — from the company Good Food Society, which aims “to develop new hospitality concepts in international markets”. Italian Ristorante Frescobaldi in New Burlington Place is one of them, the Turkish Yosma in Baker Street another. One of the partners, Levent Büyükugur, is the founder of Turkish Doors, apparently the first corporate restaurant group in Turkey.

Corporate restaurant group… international markets… this is not exactly vagabondy. Which rascal would have the wherewithal to invest in such a high-rent, high-design concept? The interior, designed by the Spanish studio of Lázaro Rosa-Violán, is actually rather thrilling, especially the fish-scale-glazed tiles in aquatic colours and the chandelier with rippling fabric lampshades falling through a double-height space above the ground-floor open kitchen.

Upstairs in the bar and DJ area bubbling glass pipes looking like a Heath Robinson distillery also divert — and make me ask: “Where is the Ladies?”

Downstairs, after a two-course dinner for two, I am astonished, and not in a good way, by a bill for £187 that on scrutiny includes £12 for a bottle of sparkling water — price amended to £5 on protest — and £30 for two Negronis. The other alcohol ordered is a glass of Malgousia and two beers. It seems ridiculous, the opposite of gadabout, especially since the half-lobster at £39 is not much bigger than a langoustine and the rib-eye steak at £33, requested rare, comes medium and dull.

Before those we try yellowtail in a citrus dressing that brings to mind that useful product Cif, and wood-fired beetroot salad, which is a fairly noble rendition of the vegetarian menu stalwart — not vegan due to the inclusion of lor cheese, the Turkish riposte to Greek myzithra.

Grilled smoked eel comes with radishes, caper leaves and delicious fava beans

Feeling that I haven’t perhaps been fair on a menu strongly driven by seafood, raw and cooked, I go back for lunch. I am with a chum whose company I enjoy a lot. We make each other laugh. Although it is early days for this new kid on the block restaurant and understandably there aren’t many other customers — in fact none for a lot of the time — we don’t need or relish the company and comments of the waiter between and after almost every mouthful of food and sip of water or wine.

This last, by the way, is Cà dei Frati “Rosa dei Frati” (£55) with a beautiful fragrance and onion-skin colour, undoubtedly better when dabbling your toes in Lake Garda from whence it comes (or the Aegean), but definitely an encouraging friend to all the food. There is good service and, however well meant, there is heckling.

Karides, marinated prawns, are out for the count under a dressing of flavoured oils, including tarragon, and a sprinkling of hot pepper. Baby squid turn up as not the anticipated chipirones but curls of crosshatched flesh from a bigger creature. The first are fun to eat, the second not so much.

A part of Catch of the Day (market price) is mackerel served as ceviche and tartare for £12. Slices of raw fish have the tangy dressing that is becoming an old friend. Cubed, it is mixed with avocado before being spread along the skeleton of the fish with its head attached glaring at us slightly malevolently. The textures do each other no favours and my chum wonders why they don’t deep-fry the skeleton — like they do at Koya up the road — to produce something crunchy to eat in contrast.

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Best of the raw/meze — it is a sharing concept, we are inevitably instructed — is grilled smoked eel with fava, radishes and caper leaves (£15). Warmth encourages the eel to release its seductive oiliness and the fava is so delicious the beans may even have come from Santorini. It is the standout assembly of all the first courses tried.

Wood-fired roasted baby chicken on an agreeable slurry of sweetcorn and spelt is too salty to be eaten. Kleftiko, traditionally a slow-cooked paper-wrapped leg of lamb, is served as various cuts including a little rack of scorched cutlets. The lamb fat and garlic-imbued potatoes are delicious though. As I bore on about how in Greece klephts were robbers who cooked their stolen lamb beneath the ground to avoid detection, my pal brightly chimes in with “kleptomaniac”. It hovers there, not out of place with our bill of £236.25, which does include an after-lunch ouzo each and one dessert where the most striking feature is the natty restaurant logo imprinted on the chocolate bar.

36-40 Rupert Street, W1 (020 7019 3460, hovarda.london). Open daily, noon-11pm (11.30pm Fri & Sat). A meal for two with wine, about £190, including 12.5 per cent service

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