Mangal 2 Ocakbasi Restaurant in Hackney

overall: everything is cooked beautifully (except tarama). but nothing wows me, flavours are familiar & common. personally find the portion quite small for the price point.sourdough pide : i can taste the sourdough starter instantly. obsessed w/ the chewy texture & the extremely smooth butter.cull yaw kofte 🐑: pricey for such a small portion (only around 2 fingers size). taste average.smoked tarama 🥕: felt like kidney failure from the high salt content. no comment on flavour cuz there is nothing apart from salt.wild mushroom pide 🍄: highlight of my meal. adore the scope of textures provided by the 3 distinct types of mushrooms, ranging from chewy to soft. addicting creamy porcini paste.fried dough w/ black bean ezme & squid 🦑: lovely chewy cubes of squid w/ crispy fluffy dough. but the sour cream (?) is so overpowering that there’s not much other flavour…chicken sarma & savoury porridge 🐔: juicy filing wrapped in a crispy smoky grilled cabbage. first time trying savoury porridge & i quite like it, very hearty & warm.cull yaw loin w/ black lentil stew 🐑: stew is very comforting & has a perfect consistency. loin is cooked til pink inside & tender but the cut itself is not meaty enough.lemon sole w/ muscle & barley 🐟: highlight is the chewy barley cooked in a seafood rich sauce. fish is soft & rubbed w/ herby seasoning.bitter green & breadcrumbs 🥗 : love the vibrant pink choice of vegetables. beautiful crunchy salad paired w/ addicting breadcrumbs.carob cake w/ butterscotch 🍰: reminds me of sticky toffee pudding in a good way. spongey, sweet, finger-licking.mountain tea ice cream 🍦: tea flavour that blends well with the sweet & sour rhubarb. love how the rhubarb keeps its texture & not blended into a jam/ pastes.

ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS!This is not my first time at Mangall II but I have just been reminded about why I love this place so much. The food is out of this world and keeps you guessing because the menu has new surprises on it every time.Chef and staff are all so lovely and helpful.Would recommend for both lunch and dinner!

Mangal 2 fully lived up to the hype! Best dishes were the doner and kofte starter, but everything was bang on point including amazing sourdough pides, mackerel gently grilled in vine leaves and incredibly flavourful cull yaw. We had two amazing orange wines which went perfectly with the food. Warm, personable and unhurried service made for a lovely meal. And actually really good value for what you’re getting, contrary to what some of the reviews here have noted. Our party of four all agreed that we would come back here in a flash.

I really struggled with this experience. Between the revolving door blasting cold air in my face every 2 minutes and price point for food which felt more about presentation than flavor, it just didn’t do it for me. It seems great for “vibes” but not food.

Had a meal here after hearing the hype for ages, nice flavours but tiny portions with no substance and very expensive for what it is. £75 later we headed to macdonalds for a couple of Big Macs as still starving. Staff very friendly but place quite cramped and long wait between courses. Won’t be rushing back I suppose which is a shame as I’d heard great things

Had an amazing lunch today at Mangal. For 10 pounds each - we were treated to a feast which was excellent value for money and quality . For starters we had vine leaves and were given complementary Turkish bread , grilled onions and hummus. This was followed by grilled chicken for hubby and a moussaka for me . Everything tasted fresh and homemade and I will definitely be back .

DELICIOUS - Super creative and innovative spin on traditional Turkish food. I've eaten Turkish food on Kingsland road my whole life and enjoyed going to Mangal 2 before 2020 lockdown. I was excited to see how they would modernise and change the menu once they reopened and honestly they have not disappointed! The food is very rich, high quality products and incredible wine menu. There were so many things on the menu that we wanted to order - everything looked incredible. We've already booked our next visit so we can try other dishes. Of course if you're just expecting your typical north London Turkish then this may not be for you but come with an open mind and you will have a culinary experience. Only criticism is that it's so popular that it can feel a bit cramped in such a small space - and we felt slightly rushed to leave within 2 hours understandably as it is popular!

Fantastic small restaurant, looks like a traditional Turkish ocakbasi but the cooking and delicious ingredients are very much more than that suggests. Expect great depth of flavour in sauces, rubs and dressings, excellent grilling, all with perfect breads.It has a short menu of small and large plates with a couple of deserts. With a party of four its more a case what to leave out rather which to choose.Service is very friendly too. Its a busy place so book in advance.

My favourite restaurant in London. Best quality and very good vibe. I can’t stop thinking about the brown crab pide! 100% recommend

I visited here with my partner recently for an evening meal before a night out at the boxing nearby.I had high hopes after reading a glowing review of this place from a famous food critic who is pretty hard to please. Also because on paper at least, the menu was right up my street, featuring dishes centred around both octopus AND sweetbreads, two of my all-time faves.The venue itself is okay; small, noisy and (on the day we visited at least) hot. The menu and wine list were presented without explanation and I was offered a pint of beer whilst my partner had a coke. My beer took an age to arrive and when it did it wasn’t particularly fresh or nice (£6.75 for a pint of pale ale!!!?)Anyway, we’d come for the food. As the larger dishes were knocking on twenty quid each we decided we’d have one each and that with two sides and some bread to start that would be ample. That turned out to be a mistake. The bread, when it arrived was the size of a tea coaster. It was delicious, as was the tangy butter that accompanied it, but for nearly four quid I think it was reasonable to have expected more.The stingy bread portions set the tone for the rest of the meal. Our mains arrived and my partner’s order of lamb shoulder turned out to be just that: a medium sized plate of meat. Nothing else. Just meat. We were presented with a small saucer of yoghurt and tomato sauce as a sole accompaniment. And my dish; lamb sweetbreads with tomatoes and onions, it was, well, ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS! I can honestly say that I’ve never had such delicious sweetbreads in a restaurant ever, and I’ve eaten at some of the so-called best restaurants in the world. If I was being really picky about my dish, I would say that the sweetbreads would have benefited from being a bit more caramelised, but that’s a very minor issue in what was otherwise a TOP dish.I’m afraid there’s nothing else positive we could say about the meal. The side portions were absolutely ridiculous - a tiny plate of rice which, according to the menu contained some oyster mushrooms, but you would have needed a magnifying glass to see them. Also, another dolls’ house portion, this time of cabbage with toasted barley. Good flavour and interesting contrast of textures but at the end of the day, it’s cabbage and it wouldn’t bankrupt the restaurant to provide a decent sized portion.The less said about the wine, the better. My partner ordered a glass of sparkling and what turned up was like a sour fruit beer. Now I’m quite partial to a sour beer so I necked it in the end but my partner was disappointed because, well because she ordered a glass of sparkling wine so it’s reasonable to expect just that. The waiter needs to tell customers when they order that what they’ll be getting when they order a glass of sparkling wine is like no other sparkling wine you’ve ever had before and tastes sour. We did query this with the waiter and we were told ‘they’re supposed to be like that’. Maybe, but make it clearer what people are ordering!So there you go, you can make you’re own mind up whether you’re going to like this place. The two of us spent just over sixty quid on our meal including drinks (pint of beer and a small glass of sour wine) and, to be honest two hours later I found myself ordering a kebab in my favourite local kebab house because I was still hungry. I think there’s some really interesting flavours coming out the kitchen at Mangal 2 but they have to give it more substance if they’re going to keep the hype going.