Lahmacun in the UK: what it is, how to order it, where to find it
Quick answer
Lahmacun is a very thin round of dough spread with minced lamb, onion, tomato, pepper and parsley, baked in minutes in a hot oven and eaten rolled up with lemon and fresh herbs. It is often called Turkish pizza in the UK, which undersells it: there is no cheese, the base is closer to a flatbread, and it costs two or three pounds. It is the cheapest good meal in any Turkish restaurant and the one dish that tells you whether the kitchen has a real oven.
Calories and nutrition
- Calories
- 290
- Protein
- 14 g
- Carbs
- 38 g
- Fat
- 9 g
- Salt
- 1.2 g
240–340 kcal
Portion: One lahmacun, about 130 g, with lemon and herbs.
Two lahmacun with salad is a light meal at under 600 kcal; the leanest choice on a grill menu.
Estimates for a typical portion, based on standard UK and USDA food composition data. Actual values depend on the recipe and the restaurant.
What lahmacun is
The name comes from the Arabic for "meat with dough", and the dish belongs to the south-east of Turkey and northern Syria, with Gaziantep and Urfa each claiming it. The dough is rolled to a couple of millimetres, the topping is a fine paste of lamb, onion, tomato, red pepper, parsley and pepper paste spread almost to the edge, and it bakes in under three minutes in a wood or stone oven hot enough to blister the base. It comes to the table flat, with a wedge of lemon, parsley, sliced onion with sumac and sometimes rocket, and the correct way to eat it is to squeeze the lemon, pile on the herbs, roll it into a cigar and eat it with your hands.
Lahmacun versus pide
People confuse the two constantly. Pide is a boat-shaped bread with a thicker base, filled with cheese, egg, sucuk or minced meat and baked longer; it is a meal for one or shared. Lahmacun is thinner, rounder, meat-only, cheaper and faster, and Turks eat two or three at a sitting as a starter or a snack. A restaurant that bakes both from the same oven is usually a pide salonu, and the presence of a dedicated pide and lahmacun oven, rather than a pizza oven, is the clearest sign of a serious kitchen.
How to spot a good one
The base should be thin enough to roll without cracking and blistered dark in patches underneath. The topping should be spread thin and cooked through, tasting of lamb and pepper paste, not of raw onion or too much tomato. It should arrive within minutes of ordering, because it cannot be held; a lahmacun that sits for ten minutes goes soft. The best places in the UK make the dough in the morning and shape it to order, and you can watch it go in and come out of the oven from the counter.
Where in the UK it is done well
The Turkish and Kurdish restaurants of Hackney, Haringey and Enfield in North London bake more lahmacun than the rest of the country combined, and several specialise in it with nothing else on the menu. In Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds the pide salonu format has spread in the last decade. The ranking below counts Turkish restaurants in our directory whose name signals lahmacun or pide.
How to order it
Order two per person as a starter or three as a meal. Ask for it 'acılı' if you want it spicy and check whether the kitchen has a proper oven; if lahmacun comes from a domestic pizza oven it will be thick. Ayran, the salted yoghurt drink, is the traditional partner.
Where it's done well
UK councils with the most lahmacun specialists, by restaurant name, in our directory.
Restaurants near you
Search by postcode or use your location to find restaurants likely to serve lahmacun near you.
Make it at home
Serves 4 · 60 min
Ingredients
- 300 g plain flour, plus extra for rolling
- half a tsp salt
- 1 tsp instant yeast
- 180 ml warm water
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 250 g minced lamb, 20 per cent fat
- 1 small onion, grated
- 1 ripe tomato, grated
- 1 red pepper, very finely chopped
- 2 tbsp Turkish red pepper paste (biber salçası)
- a handful of flat parsley, finely chopped
- 1 tsp paprika, half a tsp cumin, salt and pepper
- lemon wedges, parsley and sliced onion with sumac to serve
Method
- Mix the flour, salt and yeast, add the water and oil, and knead for eight minutes to a soft dough. Cover and rest for an hour.
- Put the lamb, onion, tomato, pepper, pepper paste, parsley and spices in a bowl and work them together with your hands until it is a paste that spreads.
- Heat the oven to its maximum with a baking tray or stone inside for at least twenty minutes.
- Divide the dough into eight, roll each piece paper-thin on a floured surface, and spread a thin layer of topping to the edge.
- Slide onto the hot tray and bake for three to five minutes until the edges blister. Do them one or two at a time.
- Serve immediately with lemon, parsley and onion; roll and eat.
A domestic oven cannot reach a wood oven's heat, so preheating the tray is what gives the blistered base. Keep the topping thin; too much makes the base soggy.