Kismet Turkish Café

When I was a student in London, I lived for a year on Green Lanes in Haringey, a street lined with Turkish Cypriot groceries and restaurants. This was where I was introduced to crispy flatbreads, stuffed peppers and baklavas.

It was the kind of straightforward, wholesome fare you could probably reproduce at home, if you had the time or inclination, but was so cheap – even by student standards – that it just made sense to buy it ready-made. Kismet Turkish Eethuis (café) on Albert Cuypstraat reminds me of those restaurants.

The window of Kismet Turkish Café is filled with trays of food that beckon you in, like a kid to a sweet shop. Once inside, you are directed to one of the small tables on a mezzanine level with an elevated view of the street.

The food is organised into menus, with ten meat and four vegetarian options. For a cheap €10 or so, you can choose from aubergines overflowing with well-seasoned minced lamb, roasted courgettes topped with tangy feta cheese, moussaka or oven-baked cod.

All the menus come with vegetables and rice or potatoes. For a couple more euros, you can indulge your sweet tooth with a sticky pastry or piece of Turkish delight.

Portions at Kismet Turkish Café are enormous, and as everything is prepped in advance, the food arrives within minutes. Unfortunately, it is heated in the microwave, which tends to turn once-crispy veg into soggy shadows of themselves.

That’s the major flaw of this otherwise excellent, good-value little Turkish eatery, where you’ll feel like you’ve stumbled into someone’s living room unannounced and been welcomed with open arms and a hot meal.