Evening Standard
David Ellis was thrilled by the “one-off” cooking at former Kiln head chef Meedu Saad’s Egyptian-inspired grill, which he hailed as “fusion food without the naffness” in the mould of "West-African-but-not-really" Ikoyi or Tomos Parry’s Welsh-Basque Mountain.
It is, though, “authentic to Saad: authentic to his childhood holidays in Ismailia, to growing up in Tottenham, to his teenage years scrubbing plates in a Turkish Cypriot greasy spoon just off Turnpike Lane. Authentic to his years at Kiln cooking food from Thailand, Burma, Laos.”
David recommended “faultless” orzo braised with oxtail and black lime; “transcendent” veal sweetbreads with a Bordelaise glaze; “stunning” Dexter beef tartare with Djerba harissa; pureed white beans with wild herbs and bottarga which “stopped our conversation”; glazed sausage with cloves and cinnamon; dandelion salad; and bread that “had me gurgling idiotically”. Duck, turbot and featherblade steak were not as good, but the wine list was “masterfully curated — with, thank God, enough bottles in the £20s”.
David Ellis - 2026-04-12The Guardian
Grace Dent was left “punch-drunk with memories” after a meal at this new venue from the all-conquering Super 8 group, where chef Meedu Saad has conjured up a “hazy blend of styles, cuisines and shabby-chic luxury” that might just be “the next era of restaurants”.
The menu – “essentially a 3D printout of Saad’s mind” – needs some explaining from the servers, with dishes like bird’s tongue pasta (a type of orzo) braised with spiced oxtail; molokhia (braised jute leaf and shoulder of cull yaw sheep); and aish baladi (an Egyptian wholegrain bread). A mush of pounded white beans was “insanely good”, as were monkfish wrapped in grape leaves and cooked over coals, grilled short rib infused with rosemary and three varieties of black pepper; and a “riotous, salty-sweet date and pistachio custard tart” that was the only dessert.
“Impala is shamelessly, brilliantly too much”, Grace said. Its “extraordinary, inimitable and delicious” food somehow blending “a long-ago holiday in Tunisia mixed with late-night dinners on the boundaries of Stoke Newington, complete with throwbacks to the cocktails at the weird, industrial-chic Alphabet Bar back in 90s Beak Street and sprinklings of London’s Turkish-Cypriot scene.”
Grace Dent - 2026-04-26Daily Mail
Tom Parker Bowles joined the chorus of critical praise for the new restaurant from former Kiln head chef (and still co-owner) Meedu Saad, who “truly soars” given the opportunity to create his own cuisine.
The menu is “as thrilling to read as it is exhilarating to eat” – and is unlike anything Tom has experienced before, with combinations like pastilla with pickled walnut, white beans with bottarga, and bird-tongue pasta with spiced oxtail.
The crescendo of Tom’s meal came in the form of veal sweetbreads glazed with a Bordelaise sauce and charred on the grill: “it’s one of the most magnificent pieces of offal I’ve ever tasted, rich and robustly spiced, yet elegant; the perfect union of France and North Africa, and a dish that captures the restaurant’s very essence.”
Tom Parker Bowles - 2026-05-10The Times
Giles Coren completed an almost full house of rave reviews for Impala (has any self-respecting critic still not visited?), adding his own tribute to the personalities behind the restaurant: Meedu Saad himself, a bearded, well-covered figure whose “magical power to bring pleasure to strangers” lends him the appearance of “the birthday boy at Santa Claus’s raucous 40th”, alongside Joanna Cromwell, a front-of-house manager with an “epic combination of charm, competence, wit, intellect and fun”.
Giles sat opposite a “massive charcoal fire, piled high, like the sort of thing you’d light under Joan of Arc” and watched “young men with big knives” chopping up animals by flickering firelight – a scene that reminded him of Gareth Ward’s Ynyshir.
Saad’s “staggeringly original and delicious cooking” made for “a truly original meal” with “surprises on every plate, a high wire act to flabbergast the most jaded palate”.
Giles Coren - 2026-05-10
