Stephen Fries Burger Merchant in Hackney

This is a place where we take out of town guests to demonstrate that you can eat well on a budget in London. I do love the food here, but should get over the noise level and come more often. It's a BYO with a Co-op on the corner of Kingsland Rd and Arcola St which is the nearest place to buy wine. Our most recent visit included a discrete celebrity sighting of Gilbert & George at the next table. Last night, for a table for four, we requested two orders of the warm Patlacan Salata as a starter to mop up with complimentary Turkish bread. Smokey, charcoal infused mashed aubergine puree with chunks of peeled red peppers and a dollop of labneh. In my opinion the best mezze on the menu. We also ordered the terrific grilled onion salad from the sides menu. This arrived with our mains. The onions are blackened slightly over charcoal, sweetened with pomegranate molasses and spiced with sumac. Our mains consisted of a shared platter of dry grills. Two orders of lamb shish (better than the smaller cubes of cop shish that can sometimes be dry), and single orders of pirzola and chicken wings. I prefer the skin on poultry options such as chicken wings or whole quails (if you don’t mind the fiddly size) over the skinless chicken shish. They bring chilli sauce but if you want to dip your meat in yoghurt order a cacik starter to arrive with your mains. Alternatively, you can order a yogurtlu main but these are harder to share. Mangal1 is very well priced. It is a BYO where dinner for 4 came to £90 before service. At 19:30 on a Sunday we needed to queue maybe 10 minutes. They only take bookings for large groups. It's a noisy bustling place, so suitable for groups of friends, but maybe not a date.

Food was delicious and served hot!

With a few friends and this being one of their favourite places I tried it out with them. The atmosphere was electric and the food was lovely. I would happily come here again.