Ocakbasi in the UK: what it is, how to order it, where to find it

What an ocakbaşı is

The ocak is a long trough of charcoal set into a stone or steel counter, with a chimney above and a row of skewers laid across it. The cook, the ocakbaşı usta, stands behind it turning the skewers by hand, and the best seats in the house are the stools along the counter where you can see and smell everything. The menu is short: shish, adana, köfte, chicken thigh and wings, lamb chops, quail, offal for those who want it, and a few grilled vegetables, with bread warmed on the grill and salads. Doner and pide are extras; the grill is the point. In Turkey the format is Anatolian; in the UK it is almost entirely a North London tradition that began in the 1980s.

How to order in one

Start with bread and a couple of cold meze, then order a mixed grill for the table rather than individual mains. Everything comes on one platter over bread with grilled peppers, tomatoes and onions. The cook usually decides the order things arrive in, and the meat comes when it is ready, not when the starters are cleared; that is how it works. Ask for lamb 'orta' for medium. Chicken wings and lamb chops are the underrated orders. Tea comes at the end without asking. Most ocakbaşı houses are unlicensed and let you bring your own drinks; check before you go.

What makes a good one

Real charcoal, visibly glowing, not gas with a charcoal flavouring. Meat cut and skewered in house, and a fridge of marinating trays you can see. A cook who moves skewers up and down the heat rather than leaving them in one place. Bread warmed on the grill, not in a toaster. And the room should smell of smoke and lamb fat when you walk in; if it does not, the grill is not being used the way it should be.

Where in the UK it is done well

Green Lanes in Harringay and Stoke Newington High Street have the highest concentration of ocakbaşı houses anywhere outside Turkey, several of them thirty years old. Enfield's Hertford Road, Dalston and Holloway Road follow. Outside London the format exists in Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds but is rarer. The ranking below counts Turkish restaurants in our directory whose name signals ocakbaşı or mangal.