Alira
Editorial
Ex-Rockpool's Mikee Collins manages the small floor with the finesse of haute cuisine training, yet manages a casual, amiable presence. Service is attentive, with staff keen to explain the menu's exotic, perhaps lesser known, dishes. The Alira Negroni adds a splash of grapefruit juice and sweet Pedro Ximenez sherry to the classic combo of gin, vermouth and Campari, and goes down a palate-cleansing treat against tapas' olive oil base and heady spices.
Glazed terracotta bowls quickly arrive to the table, offering condiments to pair with crunchy, grilled flatbread; plump chunks of oven-roasted eggplant are smoky, silky and smooth, while creamy house-made labneh cheese is studded with nutty white and black sesame seeds. 'Devils on horseback' are a sweet 'n' sour riding duo - luscious dates stuffed with crushed almonds, rolled in crispy prosciutto and flash-fried - while a pair of salted cod croquettes' crunchy shells break to expose a light, flaky fish interior.
Main courses are served on colourful platters, ready for division by eager diners. A citrusy salad of aniseed-tinged shaved fennel, sits atop equally thinly sliced kingfish. Buttery prawns mop up salty, parsley-heavy chermoula alongside the crunch of meaty pork scratchings. A tangy yoghurt panna cotta arrives to finish, bejewelled with a line of ruby-red fig segments and crystal-like candied fennel leaves.
Alira's menu moves effortlessly from the Middle East to Spain to Morocco - a concise account of bygone Moorish regimes transported into a very tasty future.
Alecia Wood, October 2010
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