Oma review: Greek-island fare pulled off with aplomb

Hot on the heels of Camille and Kolae in Borough Market comes this new island-inspired Greek from David Carter, a former Gordon Ramsay front-of-house who already has American barbecue joint Smokestak and nose-to-tail Italian restaurant Manteca, both in Shoreditch, to his name. With downstairs wine bar Agora topped by first-floor dining room Oma, this is Carter’s most ambitious project yet – and he’s pulled it off with aplomb.

The mood: It’s all Greek

A flight of white stone stairs leads to a dining room under the green girders of the market roof. A terrace spreads out to the left while on the right is a 2.5m-long raw bar and hearth, where dry-aged meat, Cornish fish and Flourish Farm veg are cooked over an open wood fire. Smokestak and Manteca designers Box 9 have created an interior as weathered as the most sun-kissed, wind-swept Greek isle, with a colour scheme of eucalyptus and stone applied to natural materials. At lunch the space is flooded with daylight; in the evening, low lighting and thudding beats create a mesmeric scene.

The food: That of the gods

Greek food is having a moment in London – Kima, Vori, Gaia – but no one has applied the same creativity to the cuisine as Barbados-born Carter and his Ecuadorian head chef Jorge Paredes. The wood-fired breads, baked downstairs, are worth the cost of entry alone – pillowy laffa, or açma verde like a cross between a bagel and garlic bread – and dredged through labneh topped with salt cod XO sauce or smoky baba ghanoush with a rubble of Jerusalem artichoke. Elsewhere are sausage and octopus glued together on a skewer with sticky lamb sauce like succulent surf ’n’ turf. Not everything is so rich – Oma is the Greek word for raw and there’s gilthead bream ceviche and sea bass crudo made from fish picked off the glittering ice.

Oma is located at 2-4 Bedale St, London

oma.london

See our pick of London's newest restaurant openings.

TOPICS

Ben McCormack is a London-based restaurant journalist with over 25 years’ experience of writing. He has been the restaurant expert for Telegraph Luxury since 2013, for which he was shortlisted in the Restaurant Writer category at the Fortnum & Mason Food and Drink Awards. He is a regular contributor to the Evening Standard, Food and Travel and Decanter. He lives in west London with his partner and lockdown cockapoo.