moro, london ec1

 

my friend dom was in london and wanting to catch-up, my job was to find somewhere we could relax over our drinks and enjoy some good food.

moro is a fabulous restaurant that specialises in spanish/ north african cuisine, referring to it as “the marriage between saffron and cinnamon”. owned by sam & sam clark who have authored two accessible books that are much-splattered and used in my kitchen moro cookbook and casa moro), it is a comfortable place to be – a lively atmosphere, friendly staff and good quality simple dishes.

the bread they serve as you sit down has an earthy yeasty taste and a texture that makes you glad your teeth are strong enough to get through the chewy crust! we all wanted the charcoal grilled squid with zhoug to start but i was the lucky winner. melt in the mouth squid with a clean-tasting green and fiery sauce to accompany it – perfect! other starters were mojama (dry-cured tuna) with piquillo pepper and caperberry salad (very good and i have been inspired me to buy some mojama and try using it myself) and aubergine, mint and chilli salad with labneh.

my main of charcoal-grilled lamb with aubergine pilav was full of flavour with wonderfully tender lamb. the courgettes cooked in yoghurt and mint with pine nuts that accompanied a wood-roasted chicken were excellent and i need to see if that recipe is in any of their books. the crunchy crackling that came as part of white pork with fried goat’s horn peppers and saffron chickpeas was also superb and definitely worth stealing from someone else’s plate.

i hadn’t visited moro for almost 2 years and i really hope that i’ll be back sooner for my next visit. in the meantime i’ll get their books out and hope that the home-made versions work just as well.

Comments

[wine ott]

What were the drinks like? Did you try their winelist? When I visited, as well as enjoying the food and relaxed atmos, I sampled a peculiar green wine (which they list as an aperitif wine on their winelist) - a first for me, outside of Green's ginger wine, which doesn't really qualify! And they have a fantastic supply of Spanish wines to complement their cuisine.

[abby]

the green wine is listed as aestoi txacoli, a basque green wine from getaria, spain. hopefully it was better than the sparkling txacoli that i sampled when i was in barcelona. this was worth ordering for the spectacle of the waiters pouring it from a great height, but not much else!

back to moro - i was drinking rose which was lovely but sadly not from spain (they do stock a spanish rose but it's not available by the glass)

[wine ott]

Not sure about sparkling txacoli - stick with their Cava if you go back to Barca. It can be unbelievably good value when compared with the usual offerings in the UK, particularly Champagne. Not sure which to recommend, but the good news on prices means you don't have to use the second-from-the-top option if the lists are a little overwhelming!

[abby]

the spanish cava i tried in barcelona was called bertha - very good and as you say, excellent value!

[johannaq]

i recently went to moro's with jeanne (cooksister) and unfortunately did not have such a great experience. i loved my mojama and the bread, but our mains were unacceptable... a bad night? maybe. would love to try their tapas some day!

[abby]

hi johanna, since going a few friends have mentionned similar experiences to you - it seems the consistency is not as good as it should be. i'd like to try the tapas too!