Evening Standard
Back on more familiar positive-review territory, Jimi Famurewa enjoyed some “surprising and utterly scintillating” cooking at David Carter’s “twin-pack of blockbusting Borough Market openings”, a Greek-inspired upstairs-and-downstairs pair which “draw their power from a kind of sophisticated primality”.
Although Agora (meaning market) is “almost illegally fun” on a Friday night, Jimi feels that its food sometimes lacks direction. “In my view Oma, the Greek word for ‘raw’, is the one to go for.”
The occasional intrusion of non-Greek elements – XO sauce from China, ceviche from Mexico – showed that Colombian chef Jorge Paredes was more interested “gently heretical capturing of culinary essence” rather than authenticity. All the better, in Jimi’s view: “the combination of ancient Greek simplicity and definably London gastronomic rule-breaking is nothing short of, well, epic.”
Jimi Famurewa - 2024-05-05The Daily Telegraph
William Sitwell was dispatched by his editor – clearly against his will – to Greek restaurant Agora – the more informal sibling to Oma upstairs, which other critics have raved about, and where booking is available. Poor William had to queue outside with his family for 45 minutes, and once inside could barely hear above the “yellingly loud room”.
“The dishes match the hubbub, unfussy and canteenish. Sort of like street food or festival nosh that you bung in as the din ensues,” he reckoned.
That said, William had the good grace to praise a “wonderfully garlicky borani – like tzatziki on acid – topped with flattened and crisp garlic”, and a “fabulously authentic” Greek salad with “not a lettuce leaf in sight, just cucumber, tomatoes, onions and some creamy cheese on top, and those rustic, teeth-challenging rusks with their lovely balsamic-like sweetness”.
All in all, then, a place for teenagers rather than this particular adult.
William Sitwell - 2024-08-25
