Forget kerb appeal – this Malaysian restaurant seems almost calculated to repel. But persevere…
When I walk into a restaurant and one of the other diners is Kalpana Sugendran Sugendran, it’s as if all my Christmases have come at once to the bottom of a scruffy flight of stairs on the Edgware Road. Who he? Why, he’s the Roti King, boss of the eponymous Euston restaurant, one of my absolute London favourites. His presence here, chatting to the owner like an old friend, means more to me than any number of Michelins or World’s 50 Best or what-bleeding-ever.
Melur has been popping up on the timelines of the kind of Instagram otaku who takes the search for bergedil or ayam berlada hijau very seriously indeed. That’s where it came to my attention: just as well, because nothing else here is exactly designed to draw in the passerby – forget any kind of kerb appeal. I follow the don’t-read-book-by-cover ethos as much as the next culinary nerd, I know the deal whereby the swankiest outpost is not necessarily the best, but Melur seems almost calculated to repel. From leery, acid-coloured posters of the menu attempting to camouflage the building works next door to those green-walled, scuffed stairs leading down to a windowless basement, it really does not give a gal the glad eye.
Related: Popolo, London EC2: ‘I’d go back weekly if I could’ – restaurant review | Marina O’Loughlin
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