CERU Restaurants, London – Levantine Restaurant

When I think of small sharing plates, the cuisine that tends to spring to mind is Spanish.  Tapas is such a fun way to eat as I love being able to try a little bit of a lot of different flavours.  Recently I’ve also been able to discover the Italian version of tapas and tonight it was time to sample some meze.  Meze is a similar idea to tapas but from a different part of the world.  Whereas Tapas tends to come from Spain, Meze is Middle Eastern in origin.  Tonight, CERU Restaurants invited us down to see their new opening and check out the food.  They already have a successful venue in South Kensington but CERU Queensway is their brand new restaurant and we were excited to see what was in store.

CERU specialises in Levantine cuisine which was a completely new word to me.  The Levant is an area in the South East of the Mediterranean Sea and encompasses countries such as Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Egypt and Cyprus.  The food is healthy and grilled and full of middle eastern spices such as cumin and turmeric.  They often use fruit and nuts in their dishes and the cuisine is fresh and delicious and unfussy.

CERU Restarants also have another huge selling point.  Almost the whole menu is completely gluten-free.  The only two things that aren’t are the pita bread and the Hammara dip.  I decided to invite my mum along to dinner as she eats the same grain, gluten and refined sugar-free diet as I do!  We knew we’d be in for a treat when we had an entire menu to pick from and not just a few gluten-free options.

We arrived to CERU and were shown to our table.  Taking a look at the drinks menu we decided to start with a cocktail.  However, all the cocktails were made with a sugar syrup and mum and I can’t eat any refined sugar.  We decided to develop our own cocktails which the staff were more than happy to accommodate.  We each picked one of the mocktails which were made with fresh fruit juices and added a shot of vodka to each!  Mum picked the Apple Mojito (£4.25) which was made with fresh apple, lime, fresh mint and soda.  I opted for the Passion Fruit Mojito (£4.50) which was a blend of fresh passion fruit, lime, fresh mint & soda. The perfect refreshing, sugar-free cocktail!

Next up we took a look at the main menu.  We were advised that we would need around 6-8 dishes between the 2 of us.  We decided to start with a couple of dips and then try one dish from every section of the menu so that we could get a good overview of the cuisine.  This meant one salad, one meat, one poultry, one seafood and one vegetarian dish.

You can’t eat meze and not get some houmous so that was definitely the first dip that we chose.  Along with the Houmous (£4.50), we decided to order one more dip and we chose the Fadi (£5.50).  This was roasted courgette with garlic, lemon and tahini.  You can have these served with pitta if you’d like but being grain and gluten-free, we opted for the crudité selection instead.

Sometimes, vegetable dishes can feel like an afterthought but not at CERU Restaurants!  The Roasted Aubergines with Chermoula, yoghurt and lohz was my second favourite dish of the evening.  We’d had to ask what lohz were and it turns out that they are spiced, roasted almonds.  The smokiness of the aubergines was delicious when paired with the spicy harissa, cool yoghurt and crunchy almonds.

But the stand-out dish of the night?  That was the Lamb Shoulder.   It had been slow-roasted for 5 hours and just fell apart as you ate it.  It was melt-in-the-mouth delicious and was crusted in a ‘secret blend’ of spices.  The dish came served with a pomegranate, fresh mint and pistachio sauce which added sweetness and texture.

 

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