Josh Katz and Berber & Q team to open Carmel in Queen’s Park

Brothers Josh and Paul Katz and Mattia Bianchi, the team behind Berber & Q and Shawarma Bar, are to open Carmel restaurant in London’s Queen’s Park this October.

Wine will be a focus for the venue with a list of approximately 60 wines, while the food menu will be inspired by North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean.

Alongside coffee from Origin Coffee, breakfast dishes with Middle Eastern flavours will include challah French toast with crème fraîche, blackberry compote and macadamia; oat porridge with cardamom milk, poached quince and candied hazelnuts; and shakshuka with confit tomato, avocado and tahini.

Lunch dishes will include blackened aubergine with tehina and smacked cucumber; roasted cod and clams with fennel, cherry tomatoes and arak butter; and grilled harissa-marinated prawns with courgette tzatziki. There will also be a selection of Middle Eastern flatbreads, fresh from a wood-fired oven, with a seasonal range of toppings, such as spinach and Tulum cheese, sweetcorn and goat merguez, and charred leeks and anchovy. The flatbreads will also be available to take away from the restaurant’s hatch or for delivery to surrounding neighbourhoods.

For dinner there will be larger dishes such as Tamworth pork chops from Swaledale served with confit garlic, preserved lemon and borlotti; or slow-grilled chicken from Sutton Hoo with curry-pickled radicchio and apricot glaze. Vegetarian dishes will include the likes of sweet potato gnocchi with burnt aubergine, yogurt and chilli butter; and grilled leeks with green chermoula and saffron aioli.

There will also be sweets and puddings, such as chocolate, rose and cardamom torte; saffron rice pudding with blood orange ice-cream; and grilled pineapple with urfa chilli syrup and pomegranate.

The space will have a long sharing table and bar as well as an open kitchen, with a total of 44 covers indoors and a 30-seat terrace on Lonsdale Road.

Josh Katz said: “My brother and I opened Berber & Q six years ago and Carmel maintains our core ethos of celebrating good company and eating great food cooked simply with real care and passion. The menu continues to take inspiration from the Levant and makes good use of the wood-fired oven, but we have some completely new creations and some classic breakfast dishes on there too. Mattia has had real fun with the wine list at Carmel and we have created a list which shows off some of the most exciting producers out there.”