BY KELLY BESWICK
Named after its co-founder’s Lebanese grandmother and with a menu inspired by her prowess in the kitchen, this cosy restaurant and wine bar serves up not just delicious food but also a hefty dollop of heart and soul
It’s a cold, dank Monday evening when we venture into Sohalia, a charming little Lebanese eatery and natural wine bar, located on an inauspicious section of Shoreditch High Street. What’s brought us here is the promise of a Middle Eastern feast, and one that we can sit back and enjoy without having to make any decisions. For this is ‘Menu-less Mondays’, the brainchild of Nathalie Moukarzel, co-founder of Sohalia, which is named after her Lebanese grandmother and whose cooking has had a huge influence on what Nathalie and her team serve up today.
Such a personal and intimate connection brings a passion and authenticity to the place, and, as we soon discover, this goes way beyond the restaurant itself. Sohalia is, in fact, part of Fat Macy’s, a social enterprise that supports young people living in hostels by providing them with culinary and hospitality skills that will help get them into their own homes. With such a worthy cause at its very heart, it’s impossible not to like Sohalia, and that’s before we’ve even tried the food!
Having decided that any form of decision-making was against the ethos of ‘Menu-less Monday’, we asked head sommelier Alexandros to choose wines that best matched the food and first up was a Leb Net, a natural sparkling white wine that comes from one of the highest vineyards in the Lebanon. Suffice to say, it was aromatic and lemony and the perfect pairing with the mezze selection that arrived quickly thereafter. These included a Loubeih bi Zeit, silky green beans braised with tomatoes, garlic and olive oil, creamy labneh with a well of chilli butter at its centre, Middle Eastern inspired devilled eggs, a flavour-packed tabbouleh and a hummus that puts those shop-bought varieties to complete and utter shame. These were all scooped up with pillowy pitta-style breads and flatbreads slathered with a chilli sauce.
Next up was a steaming bowl of Shorbet al Hamed, a traditional Lebanese soup consisting of brown lentils, butternut squash and chard. Hearty and healthy, with notes of citrus, it provided a warm, comforting hug on a winter’s night. As too did the Lebanese style tortellini that followed, with the pasta parcels packing a powerful flavour punch, with fronds of dill and pine nuts as garnish. Here we were steered by Alexandros to an Elevate Mersel as accompaniment, a cloudy white wine made from the indigenous Daw Al Amar grape, and again completely natural and eminently quaffable.
By now we were regretting the vast amount of bread consumed with the mezze, but our main course arrived looking so appetising, it was impossible to resist. A thick, dark and unctuous stew of cheek meat and oxtail, it was melt in your mouth tender while the crisp slaw on the side proved the perfect foil to such richness. Alexandros appeared again, carrying a rather snazzy-looking bottle containing Red Velvet, a famed Lebanese low intervention red wine that he duly poured, and we duly drank. Its cranberry, red apple and herby notes perfectly went with the stew, so clearly a man at the top of his pairing game!
Sadly, by the time dessert arrived, we were pretty much done, but in the interests of a fair and full review, we nibbled at the pretty tart and pastry we’d been presented. They we were both delightful, but the time had come to go and lay down in a dark room and digest!
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