Who’d have thought that a nerdish but relaxed space age taverna would turn out to be one of the openings of the year?
Oma in Borough Market is Greek, but not as you may know it. If you don’t know your “wildfarmed laffa” from your spanakopita gratin with malawach, or your giouvetsi beef-fat pangrattato from your mussel saganaki with tsalafouti, then this will be, literally, all Greek to you. At Oma, the server’s “Do you want any help with the menu?” is greeted with an emphatic “Yes!”
How is the laffa wild, but also farmed, and why is it in the bread section? I’ll tell you how: the flour for the laffa is farmed, but without pesticides, and it’s then turned into a salty, pillowy, buttery flatbread to swoosh through Oma’s showstopping bowls of hummus, babaghanoush and labneh. Yes, I did just call hummus showstopping there, but that’s what happens when David Carter of Smokestak and Manteca and Ecuadorian chef Jorge Paredes, formerly of Sabor in Mayfair, spend 18 months tinkering with the recipe before serving their hummus masabacha-style – that is, much smoother and runnier than you may be used to. Crunchy chickpeas swim in this silky custard, which is topped with a spicy, bright green coriander zhoug.
