Review: Akara, Borough

I’ve said it before, but I love London for its wealth of food. I’d lay good money that there is nowhere else in the world where so many different global cuisines are on offer at both the cheap-and-authentic and top-drawer-reimagined-dining ends of the spectrum. Borough Market, despite its earthy origins, is now a great place to seek the latter. Rambutan for high-spice Sri Lankan, Kolae for top-notch Thai, El Pastor for tacos, Padella for pasta, and now Akara for fiery West African cooking that (I suspect) bears no resemblance in presentation to what you’d find in the restaurant scene of a West African city, but maybe has all the right flavours.

The dining room is a lovely airy space, curved wood and plants, and on a hot summer’s day spilling out onto the street. We grab a table in the breeze and order cocktails. My Kojo is rum-based with kumquat triple sec, lime and verjus. The lime in it is clarified, so what I get is a short drink with beautifully clear and clean citrus flavours. Maureen’s Kaya starts with fig-infused bourbon and adds more fig and banana notes; it’s another concoction of complete clarity and great flavour.

We start with a couple of akaras – the house speciality, a soft crumbly bun with a slightly sticky and nut-brown outside (think of a financier, but savoury) split in half and filled with good stuff. Mine is slivers of barbecue celeriac, Maureen’s is a fresh crab salad. Then there is a bowl of seriously punchy sauce to dip each in; Maureen’s includes the brown crab meat with habaneros and is particularly lush. The akara are good, I could line up and eat three of these and it would be a fine lunch.

But we go on to a couple of the mains. The first is a short-rib kebab, the meat richly flavoured and moist, the peanut-based source (with just a bit of fire this time) keeps great company with it and the charred shallot goes well. This dish also goes superbly with the side of Efik rice that we’ve ordered. It’s a kind of coconut rice, but the grains still have good bite and the coconut is more of a scent than a flavour, with onion-y and buttery flavours in the mouth. The other main is cod collar with moqueca. The moqueca sauce is lush and vivid orange, with the unmistakeable flavour of the palm oil and just a bit of chilli warmth. The cod collar… well, it’s a huge pair of fish chunks, I guess from an area that on a mammal would be around the shoulders ‘cos the fins were still attached. The skin was barbecued black and the meat was dense chunks of vertical fibres rather than the soft flakes of normal cod. Sturdy, flavoursome and really good to eat. There was also a LOT of meat hidden in those collars. Yum.

I topped off with a lime and coconut sorbet, a perfect specimen that was absolutely silky-cream in texture and fragrant with lime. A good meal might be £36 each before drinks, and I’d call that priced just right. This is great cooking, full of flavour and fire, from a part of the world most of us don’t ever visit. I’d go again!