London dining is full of surprises, but nothing makes the jaw drop further than the discovery of this large, proficient restaurant, serving an eccentric variety of cuisines, hidden at the back of a boutique hotel on a tatty south London thoroughfare.

The Venue
One thing’s for sure: Hotel Pasha’s restaurant isn’t going to survive on passing trade. First, you need to find the hotel: its reception area, a glitzy, modern, minimal confection of red, gold and grey, lurks incongruously amid the fried chicken shops, Caribbean hair salons and woebegone convenience stores of gritty Camberwell Road. There are no signs to indicate the restaurant’s presence, either outside or in Reception, where the clerk informs you to follow the red carpet. And follow it you do, turning right and left every now and then as you penetrate ever more implausibly deeply into the building. Just when you think you’ve fallen for a practical joke and will end up back in Reception, the restaurant appears. But that isn’t the end of the surprises, for the large, white-walled, grey-stone floored room is divided into two areas (low tables with cushions to sit on and conventional dining furniture) by a stream with a bridge across it!

The Atmosphere
Eastern European wall hangings and the odd bouzouki soften the room’s modern style, as does the (thankfully low level) soundtrack of Euro-pop mingling with the tinkling of the indoor stream’s water feature and the bustle of chefs working in their open kitchen. The room can accommodate 90 covers. On the weeknight of inspection, about one-third of its seats are taken. The international waiting staff are smartly turned out and approachable enough for diners to seek recommendations from the large and eclectic menu.

The Food
This has to be London’s – quite possibly the world’s – only venue offering Greek and Turkish dishes alongside those of central Asian and former Soviet republics Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. The Greek and Turkish dishes have been added since the restaurant moved from the front of the hotel to the back in 2008, and grew from a modest 24 covers to the current 90. For economic reasons, therefore, it was thought necessary to offer a wider range of cuisines, including some better known ones.

Ciabatta arrives warm and crunchy but, being so quintessentially Italian, seems out of place; however the restaurant plans replace it with Turkish breads. Some of the 21 hot and cold starters are comfortingly familiar (smoked salmon, £4.50; avocado and prawn, £4) whilst others sound exceedingly foreign but turn out to be old friends in disguise: yogurtlu patlican ezme (£3.95), for example, is just smoked aubergine with yoghurt.

A mixed meze at £5.95 is a generous, rectangular plateful of high-quality old favourites including outstanding hummus; subtle, fresh yaprak dolma (vine leaves stuffed with flavoured rice – what we are used to calling dolmades); cacik (very like tzatziki) and kisir (ditto tabouleh). From a selection of nine salads, seld po russkiy (£6) is a delicious – and beautifully, geometrically presented – collation of melt-in-the-mouth marinated herring, tender slices of boiled potato and mild, sweet, crunchy gherkin, garnished with red onion and black olives.

From a huge selection of main courses (34, no less), mixed grill (£12.50) comprises simple but faultlessly flavoursome and juicy lamb chops, minced lamb patties and chicken fillet with herby rice, straw potatoes and grilled tomato. Halikarnas guvec (£13.50) is an earthenware pot of prawns baked with onion, peppers, mushrooms, tomato and white wine, and topped with gooey cheese. It is homely and comforting (it could be from a women’s magazine of the 1970s and called ‘cheesy prawn bake’), and full of first-rate prawns. It is also exceedingly oily, however: every forkful requires draining en route to the mouth.

It would appear Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan are not big on puddings. The menu features only seven, two of them Greek honey and pastry affairs, the others international, including strawberry or lemon cheesecake at £3.50 and banana split or mixed ice cream for £4. Only three of the seven turn out to be available on the night of inspection. Chocolate fudge cake (£3.50) is utterly forgettable, looking and tasting mass-produced. Chak-chak (£3.50) is better but not great, comprising crunchy pastry clusters flavoured with honey and studded with nuts and sultanas.

The Drink
A short wine list features six reds, three whites and one rose. Commendably the house white and red are under a tenner (£9.95) or £3 for a 175 ml glass. The red, an Italian merlot, is simple and pleasantly gluggable. True oenophiles will be disappointed at the list’s lack of ambition: top-of-the-shop are a French pinot noir at £18.50 and an Australian chardonnay at £17.50, apart from Moet & Chandon at £38. There’s a serviceable selection of beers, spirits, liqueurs and soft drinks. Teas and coffees, including herbal tea and Turkish coffee, are all an insanely reasonable £1.20. Even a trio of liqueur coffees barely dents the bank, let alone breaks it, at £4.50 a pop.

The Last Word
Pasha’s restaurant may be harder to find a hen’s tooth and more culinarily eccentric than the love child of Sir Patrick Moore and Su Pollard, but that doesn’t detract from the generous portions of stylishly presented, assuredly-cooked food (desserts excepted), smilingly served at very fair prices. Hunt it down for an enjoyable and unusual night out. Let’s hope the owners’ decision to all but quadruple its size and move it out of sight doesn’t prove an eccentricity too far.

venue information venue map view london review user reviews (1) image gallery (6)