GRACE AND FLAVOUR

Grace Dent does a Kim Kardashian and goes for a Levantine at Arabica Bar & Kitchen

Abalmy Wednesday night jaunt, this week, to Borough for Arabica Bar & Kitchen. Borough: the foodie mecca that I never quite feel I am using to its full delicious capacity. I wander into the market, get blindsided by 18 varying hues of heritage carrots, taste two types of organic yak curd, get entangled in a slow-walking tourist pile-up and leave in a fluster. Even with the best will to explore, I tend to simply pop by Neal’s Yard, Spice Mountain, and that lovely stall that makes the green juices that resemble Martian snot, before retreating to the glorious Elliot’s Café for a large glass of red. SE1 is a casualty of its own successful revamp.

I lived there in 2001, close to Cynthia’s robotic bar, back in the days when listening to Fischerspooner was a thing. I had a mullet haircut with a postbox-red fringe and the Great Wall Chinese restaurant was one of the only dining options. Nowadays, the postcode is chock-full of choice, with the Shard hulking down upon it, like a heavy-footed ogre that clomped into a children’s sandpit demanding all the kids make castles with it.

Arabica Bar & Kitchen — the clue is in the title — is a Levant restaurant. Roughly speaking, it serves a glorious cherry-picked mishmash of Lebanese, Moroccan, Syrian, Egyptian, Turkish and some Armenian dishes. I am fiercely pro-Armenian cuisine due to my deep love of the Kardashian clan. I share a great affinity with Kim, a fellow seemingly pointless large-bottomed brunette. Despite watching dozens, nay hundreds, of episodes of Keeping up with the Kardashians, I am yet to discover what Armenian cuisine is, largely due to the family eating most meals from pre-catered salad boxes, while Kanye West lectures them on how he has never had true recognition for inventing the leather jogging pant. Don’t head here expecting an Arabian Nights- themed, bejewelled cushion, incense and belly-dancer affair. This is a modern, rather industrial offering in a Victorian arch with bare bricks and steel; nods to the theme are sparse, but include a 1960s map of the Asie Occidentale with Levantine countries highlighted. I may campaign for a large framed picture of the Kardashian 2014 Christmas card. That would cheer up any space.