To eat at Middle Eastern restaurant Honey and Co is to buy into owners Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich’s delicious world. Within minutes of trying a sweet, salty and crunchy bite of the peach salad, I was googling their cookbook to make it at home. Since opening in 2012 – originally on Warren Street – Honey and Co has expanded to a grill house, a deli, four recipe books and even a podcast. Their new location, on a leafy nook in Bloomsbury, is the perfect addition to their expanding empire.

To eat here is to also know that you have to save room for pudding – every staff member will give you this sincere advice. It’s a task that’s surprisingly hard given the extensive size of the sharing menu’s mezze – eight plates in total. And you must try all of them; the cherry salad is a best-supporting actor to the starring role – the labaneh. Who knew a humble yoghurt dip, ingeniously served with perfectly sweet red grapes, could cause such rave reviews? Yet here we are. The lamb shawarma is a crowd pleaser, in a tangy and sweet swirl of gooey amba sauce, topped with tomatoes, pomegranate and mint, and a burnt pita to soak up all the goodness. You shouldn’t sleep on the aubergine; roasted in tahini and topped with a crumbly almond crust, with perky apricots.

And then, if you’ve heeded the call to save room, there is pudding and the much talked about feta and honey cheesecake. It sounds hefty, especially after so many dishes, but it’s a pleasant surprise when it arrives at the table looking more like a dollop of cream. It is of course so much more complex than that; it’s a silky tightrope of sweet and salty, with a crunchy base of shredded pastry, drizzled in honey syrup and sprinkled with roasted almonds and blueberries. If there’s room even still, keep the party going with the Chocolate terrazzo, a layered slab of chocolate, peanut, and tahini magic that I controversially think is even better than the cheesecake. Lauren Burvill

Price: ££

Address: 54 Lamb’s Conduit St, London WC1N 3LW
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