Review: OMA, Borough

Feels like Middle Eastern cuisine is having a big time in London, and OMA is one of the spots at the forefront of it. It’s taken us over a year to get here since we put it on our bucketlist, as earlier on it was going through that super-hyped phase where booking less than a month in advance is impossible. So what’s it like?

The dining room is in a good spot, with window views over Borough Market. The decor is stripped-back, the furniture is simple but comfortable and there’s a big open kitchen in the middle with a roaring set of coals for the grilling. We were well looked after.

Flatbread and dips make up the first part of the menu. We went for some babaganoush with jerusalem artichoke chips, and some salt cod xo with labneh. The salt cod was a crispy-sticky-umami centrepiece in a big friendly bowl of silky whipped labneh. The babaganoush was as smoky and soft as I’ve ever had, and there’s never anything wrong with jerusalem artichoke chips! Good flatbread, although it suffered in comparison with the stunning bread at Barbary Next Door.

Next up, a raw mackerel fillet with the skin scorched black, dressed with a ceviche-like mix of flavours (though they call it a nahm jim and it certainly included fish sauce). The fish was lovely, I’m a fan of raw mackerel, and the char on the skin added a nicely bitter note. We also had a fig salad with creamy-soft galomazithra cheese, almonds and a balsamic dressing. Tasty, though I did wish they’d stretched to more than a single fig for the whole dish.

Anyway, main course! This was a wonderful stone-pot dish, utterly deluxe comfort food. A great big chunk of oxtail on the bone, slow-cooked to fall-apart, then with orzo added at some point to cook in the stock with it. Lots of great bone marrow flavour running through it, this was a very richly beefy experience. Good thing to finish on.

We had a couple of decent glasses of wine, and a touch I quite liked: small-measure cocktails to start, just large enough to whet the appetite. A negroni and a gimlet, both on the light and friendly side. I think you’d probably spend around £40 each here for food, and the quality and diversity in the menu make that about right in my book. It’s got such a great spot in the middle of Borough Market too, you should definitely give OMA a go.