Age, which reduces your appetite for food and wine as well as limiting your powers of recall, does have the benefit of increasing the number of people you’ve met. As I discovered at the end of an excellent lunch at Oma (grandmother in Greek), the Greek restaurant which opened in April 2024 in London’s Borough Market.
My guests were Audrey and Danny Meyer from New York and as I walked out with them we were intercepted by a tall man who introduced himself as David Carter. I then remembered I had come across Oma’s patron before. Having seen the Meyers off, I returned to the restaurant and asked Carter whether he could spare a few minutes. He kindly agreed to answer my questions.
I had arrived before my friends and was rather dismayed, having climbed the steep steps to the restaurant above their more relaxed Agora (Greek for an assembly) restaurant on the ground floor (that was packed at 1.40 pm), to be told that the lavatories were two floors down. Then as I sat on my own for 15 minutes I became aware of the harsh acoustics. All the surfaces are hard: there are no tablecloths and the music thumps non-stop. Not surprisingly, laughter and chatter bounces around the room. This didn’t seem to bother anybody else in the crowded room; nor, I must admit, did it affect me and my guests once we were all together.
The view from our Table 207 was fascinating. There is a large open kitchen to the left with open flames a plenty. One has a good view of the iron structure of Borough Market straight ahead across a balcony with tables and chairs, and heavy rugs on the back of them, from which you can look down on what must be one of the most popular food markets in the world. A wall of wine bottles faces the table and there is the constant bustle of young and energetic waiting staff; we watched one chef carefully carrying a large tray of red mullet up the stairs.
I looked at the menu, ordered a small negroni artfully poured into a thin glass, and started to look at the menu and the wine list before I was interrupted. ‘Hi’, came the voice from an unusually tall waiter. ‘I’m the sommelier today and if I can help in any way, just let me know.’ I nodded and went back to studying what is a wine list full of delights.
Several individuals have obviously put a great deal of thought into it. The list is broken down, not unusually, into sparkling, pink, orange, white and red but then into these categories: Influence of the sea; Surrounded by the sea; and Further inland. There’s a section that spotlights a grape variety, in this case Xinomavro. And then it went on to highlight three producers differentiated by their location: Domaine de Vaccelli in Corsica; Victoria Torres Pecis in La Palma; and Frank Cornelissen from Etna. I had the same sensation as after seeing a particularly good exhibition: the list must have been as much fun to compile as to read. We managed only a glass each of 2022 Meth’Imon Assyrtiko from Dougos in Thessaly (£12.50) but I will return.
By contrast, the menu seemed initially less interesting. It, too, is broken down into sections: bread, spreads, crudo, small and clay pot + grill. These and their contents seemed relatively familiar so we decided to ask our waitress for assistance.
She rattled off, ‘I would order a couple of breads and spreads, particularly the salt cod, and then a couple of crudo, definitely the sea bass, then I wouldn’t miss the spanakopita or the oxtail.’ To which one of us added the picanha, for reasons which will become obvious later, and all that we were left to say was ‘Yes, please’.
What became obvious is that Carter has allowed his chefs to think laterally and not to be bound by Greece. Of the breads, the laffa is Iraqi by origin while the açma, combined with parsley and garlic butter, is rolled into the shape of what might be called a Turkish bagel (pictured above by Gilles Draps). Of the spreads, the salt cod with labneh was the highlight, the labneh adding a temperate touch. Of the two crudo dishes, the sea bass with jalapeño dressing was outstanding: creamy yet spicy, it was almost fought over. Then came a ‘deconstructed’ spanakopita which will appeal to every spinach lover: a bowl of cooked spinach topped with cheese, both of which are to be mopped up with a slice of malawach, a Jewish Yemenite flatbread (again, pictured by Gilles Draps).
Of the three dishes from the clay pot section, the squid with the chickpea stew was the most photogenic; the oxtail, topped with bone marrow and beef fat and served with orzo pasta, the most delicious (see below); and the picanha the most straightforward. But Danny was intrigued by its presence on a British menu. ‘It’s a cut from the top of the rump’, he explained, ‘long popular in South America and increasingly so with chefs across the US as the prices for prime cuts continue to rise.’ (His comment reminded me: once a restaurateur, always a restaurateur.) With this I paid my bill of £236.50 for the three of us.
And having said goodbye to one restaurateur, I was joined by another as David Carter came to sit down next to me and I remembered where I had seen him before. It was at Smokestak, his barbecue restaurant in Hackney, and then at Manteca, his stylish Italian restaurant in Shoreditch. What links his three establishments is not only his passion but also his innate ability to distil the charms of the different styles of cooking – barbecue, Italian and Greek – into fun and approachable places.
Carter was born in Barbados and still has a distinctive Barbadian accent. He studied hospitality in Canada before moving to the UK, a country he loves. He’s a big man with enthusiasm for giving his customers a good time almost spilling out of him. His current love is Greece to which he will be taking 11 of his team next week, to enjoy Athens followed by a skiing trip to Mount Parnassos.
But what intrigued me was the building Oma occupies. Obviously new, it’s wedged in with scores of other restaurants and with a view of the many trains in and out of London Bridge station. How had he found it and how had he made it work seemingly so successfully?
‘That’s a good question’, Carter replied. ‘It used to be a Hotel Chocolat with a shop downstairs but then that was knocked down and this one was built in its place. The key is the basement where there is, among other things, the kitchen and the bakery. They supply the energy for the whole building. The Agora is definitely a nod to Athens that provides the “street feel” – and when the weather is a little warmer, the frontage opens up onto the street. Oma is more refined and designed to convey the romance not just of Greece but also of the islands which I love.’
It is an easy thing to write: Oma and Agora, along with Smokestak and Manteca, serve the distinctive styles of food, wine and hospitality that Carter himself enjoys every day of every week. Making it all work in a building spread over three floors is much more challenging.
Oma 3 Bedale Street, London SE1 9AL; tel: +44 (0)20 8129 6760
Every Sunday, Nick writes about restaurants. To stay abreast of his reviews, sign up for our weekly newsletter.
