Oklava in Hackney

We have been there for lunch. The date butter is superb. The starters were very good: cheese with honey and tomatoes cuori di Vesuvio. The main dishes were ok and a bit overpriced. The service is very kind and attentive.

Simple place with some great dishes.The food is full of flavor and very well made. The staff was really welcoming and knowledgeable.The venue is simple and located in a very hip area. It can get crowded and unfortunately really (really) loud! And depending on who you are can somewhat hurt the overall experience.

Had a really delicious meal here. You can tell all ingredients are of high quality and the dishes were so tasty! One of my top fave restaurants in London!

If you grew up eating Turkish, Greek and/or any Levantine cuisine, you might not be impressed here. Oklava has a reputation built on good food critics and social media posts. The place is smallish with a relaxed casual atmosphere (this is not a dying to be seen place and it is not decorated for insta selfies!).When booking I requested a seated table rather than a bar stool!Service is friendly although lacked a bit of time to get the menu explained.Hellim was nice and crusty, oozing with honey (an exact replica of usual cooked food in my home!). Pide was excellent and original. Surdough bread and medjool date was worth it! Best bread tasted in LDN for a long time. Cypriot chips were good and spicy with an excellent mayo but sadly arrived on the table long time before the seared hanger beef in chili oil they were supposed to be served with... Therefore eating the delicious but very oily beef on its own was (a bit of) a struggle.Unfortunately, too full to try the Kunnefeh dessert.Cup of Turkish coffee was well needed.All the above cost £99. Cheap ? Not for that kind if food. Expensive? Not for the quality and experience. Obviously, not a place we'd go on a weekly basis...just for the diet's perspective!Some good cocktails, no choice of beer (only standard Efes!).

Modern, innovative take on Turkish food, with intoxicating flavors in a hip setting. While the service was at times slow and some of the portions were small for plates meant for sharing (especially the starters), the friendly staff and delicious dishes had us sold from the start. Chef Kiazim used to have a couple of other restaurants in London, both were fabulous and I’m heartbroken they’ve now closed, so glad to have had another taste of her food.Not pictured are two starters - the hellim and the muhammara - that might have been the best in the entire meal (along with the cheese pide). I highly recommend booking in advance as it’s a small space, and you want to make sure you get a good spot.

NYE visitFood - amazing. One of those rare places where every single item is delicious. The Black Sea Pidefully deserves its reputation. The Kunefe here changed my opinion of this dish completely - it’s heads and shoulders above any version I’ve tried elsewhere.Setting - in a nice quiet area away from the bustle. Small intimate restaurant where you can see the goings on of the kitchen. Nice ambience, no loud music and good noise control so we could hear ourselves over the other diners.Service - somewhat let down by the service. Staff were lovely but the kitchen was very slow despite several empty tables. It felt like we were waiting about 20 mins between each small plate. They arrived one at a time and it was kind of annoying as there were some dishes we had imagined eating together.Bill - we liked that the service charge was incorporated into the food price.

Firstly - get the bread with date butter. Even if you don't like dates. Secondly, get the lammachun. Thirdly get the hellim. And finally, book in advance because I watched a fair few people get turned away. It's hardly surprising given the quality of the food that Selin and co. have created. You might not understand everything on the menu, but fear not as the incredibly friendly front of house staff will explain everything to you on the menu, and make sure you have an incredible experience. If you're considering Oklava - go.

Would preferred if there was seafood options. Food was quite heavy. would recommend sharing between 3-4 people instead of 2 people. Service was nice as well, but will only revisit if menu changed a bit more because of the limited selection of dishes. I would recommend ordering the cabbage. The bread was undercooked, but the butter was amazing.

Modern, innovative, tradition-inspired are the words that describe this place. When you enter the place you see the open kitchen right in front of you where chefs are making Turkish and Cyprus influenced dishes with a modern twist. You definitely have not seen anything like this before. Dishes are well thought through with a selection of wines from turkey, Georgia , Armenia etc. to complement the dishes. I have this stove oven baked dish and it was superb. Will definitely try other dishes next time. Highly recommended!

It was great to be back inside the restaurant after our last visit where we enjoyed a fabulous al fresco dining experience back in April. I also have to say that the turkish food we enjoyed on saturday was probably the best we’ve ever had. This was matched with fabulous cocktails , good wine and fantastic service. So you can understand why Oklava is clearly one of our favourite restaurants to visit.So yes this led us to saturday and a truly amazing visit once again. The restaurant is nicely tucked away on the corner of Luke Street in Shoreditch and literally less than ten minutes from Liverpool Street station. When we arrived general manager Conall remembered us from earlier in the year and was delighted to see us back before showing us to our table. In fact he couldn’t have looked after us any better throughout our entire lunch.We started to look at the menu when one of the chefs came over to ask if we had any questions and also to inform us of the two specials on offer. We then ordered a cocktail each a Cherry Spritz and a Beet Negroni which were both absolutely fabulous.Now it was time to order the food to which we managed to have all dishes that we’d never tried before including the specials of the day. These were mackerel which is my wife’s favourite and hake which is one of my favourites.So now let’s get started and of course you have to begin with the amazing Baharat Bread & Medjool Date Butter it’s simply to die for. We followed this with Crispy Fried Aubergine with greengage ketchup & kyseri spice that was heaven. Our palate was slightly refreshed by a delightful salad of Fava , grilled summer salad , kale ezme & black cypriot olive oil.Now it was Pide time and in my opinion their best yet. The Black Truffle Pide with feta & pickled hen of the woods was an absolute flavour sensation. This was followed by the Pekemez glazed grilled Quail with fragola grapes & rosemary brown butter. The dish was accompanied by the Tomato Salad with lemon braised greens & sherry caramel which complimented the quail perfectly.We now moved onto the two Specials of the Day. My wife had the Mackerel which when you looked at her face you could tell how good it was. For myself I had the Hake which was topped with apple and in a light buttery sauce. It was truly amazing and you would have to go along way to try and beat this. So all credit to head chef Dawid for not only these two specials but for every dish that we had the pleasure of eating today.Now after a nice little rest it was time to finish with desserts and these were not for the feint hearted. The Spiced Rice Pudding with fig leaf oil , mahlep ice cream & hazelnut crumble was absolutely delicious. The Malt Custard with caramel ice cream , summer fruits & pecan wafer was lighter than the rice pudding but equally fabulous. These desserts were a fantastic way to finish a truly amazing Turkish lunch.This brought to an end yet another amazing visit to Oklava and a restaurant that I would highly recommend visiting yourself. The food was absolutely amazing so thanks to head chef Dawid and the team. The service led by Conall was excellent. So when you put this all together you can see why already looking forward to a return visit.Thank You Selin , Dawid , Conall and all the team for an amazing lunch and hope to see you all again soon