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Good, authentic Turkish food is hard to find. So when it turns up on your doorstep it's cause for celebration
54 Camberwell Church Street, London SE5 (020 7701 6677). Meal for two, including wine and service: £60
Once Upon A Time In Islington, which is a movie nobody should ever make, there was a temple to meat eating. The Angel Mangal didn't look like much, but nobody went there for the decor. They went for the glorious interplay of animal, fat, fire and salt which lies at the heart of a certain type of Turkish cooking. When I reviewed the Angel Mangal in 2003, I got stick from various food warriors who felt I was giving away one of London's food secrets. The fact is I should have shouted louder, because it eventually went out of business. Those wanting a hit of this kind of grill food – mangal simply means brazier or barbecue – then had to schlep up to the furthest reaches of north London. The mangals up there are fine but, in my experience, none of them was ever quite as good as the one on Upper Street.
Now, happily, there is a solution. You might call it a replacement. It's called FM Mangal, and it's about a mile from my house. Hoorah for, well, me. FM Mangal is a three-storey affair, with the highest level reached via a heel-unfriendly metal spiral staircase, which I avoided on account of my Louboutins. Instead we had a table on the mezzanine, which looks out over the large grill by the window.
The menu is long and for anyone with experience of Turkey – I visited the restaurant just a couple of days before heading back there for our umpteenth family summer break – very familiar. It's grilled meaty and salady things and a combination of the two, with various outbreaks of yogurt and flatbread. We ordered both a mixed cold and hot meze, which is merely a way to pass the time while waiting for things with legs to be grilled for you. The hot meze is perhaps the lowest point, featuring lumps of that strange, cumin-spiked, worryingly pink sausage found all over Turkey. It is proof that authentic isn't the same as good. The calamari and discs of falafel have a mass-produced look. The dips on the cold meze – hummus, tabbouleh, a smear of vividly pink tarama, the familiar yogurt, cucumber and garlic dip – are merely fine.
But even here, there are good signs. There is the bowl of quartered onions and whole garlic cloves, charcoal-grilled to lightly blackened, and served with a sweet-sour vinegary sauce. We couldn't stop eating them. Then there are the soft flatbreads, slicked with a truly fabulous spiced sauce with the punch of something meaty and smokey. I saw them being finished over the top of the kebabs on the grill which might explain it; that would also make the breads here vegetarian unfriendly. Then again, that pretty much describes the whole place. Bringing a vegetarian here for dinner would be like dragging the pope to a gay pride march and telling him to stop whining and put on the pink afro wig.
For what matters is the special mixed grill, at £13.50: the perfect, salty lamb chops with the crisped, copper-coloured ribbons of fat at their back, and the dinky ribs that demand the use of hands. There is the kofte, formed from assertively spiced lamb which hasn't been over-minced. There are chicken wings and bits and bobs of kebab, and a whole spatchcocked quail, to be torn apart. All of it is seasoned liberally.
I sensed the kick of that vibrant purple citrus sumac and a little cumin, but when I asked what else was in the seasoning mix they barked "secret" and grinned. Like I could do this at home. Like I would want to. The sides – salads of red cabbage and carrot, light buttery rice – are all present and absolutely correct. There may have been desserts on the menu but we didn't get there. We were done. With the bill they brought us slabs of watermelon and thimbles of almond liquor. We had tasted Turkey before we had got there. We were happy.