215Hackney is a small ‘middle Eastern’ cafe on Stoke Newington High Street (215 to be precise) in Hackney. From its website: ‘We serve food from Tel-Aviv street food to Palestinian breakfasts, from Lebanese bread to Syrian platters, from Turkish ingredients to Kurdish delicacies.’ I’ve been to the original location and yesterday I tried its newest location in the regenerated Woodberry Down area.
The first time at the original I had a small breakfast of a scrambled egg and some of their own baked pita. The second time I had a sabih.
This time I had brunch and chose the Jerusalem breakfast £11: boiled egg, feta, olives, dak dak salad, hummus, Baba ganoush With pita and turmeric yogurt. My vegan friend had the sabih. £9.
The menus in each location are identical.
My breakfast looked a bit of a mess on the plate, but I like this sort of mixed meze meal and enjoyed it. I prefer my hummus without cumin and my Baba ganoush with tahini, but all was fresh and pleasant. I also had a matcha latte because their chai latte is sweetened and I’m off coffee lately. The space is modern and light. And much bigger than their original cafe.
It’s just nice to see expansion during this tough time for the food industry. The owners are local and they give a lot to the community generally and provided meals for the NHS when they couldn’t serve regular customers. So I’ll continue to go. Next time a meaty breakfast, I think!
