Efendy

Owner/chef Somer Sivrioglu recently remodelled his six-year-old Balmain business to incorporate a buzzy ground floor mezze bar and a 'proper' restaurant on the first floor. So upstairs, it's all tablecloths, arched, tiled columns, good wine and three-course dinners running from a conversation-starting bowl of deboned sheep's head, tongue and brains (huge fun) to a rich eggplant bayildi with goat's fetta, walnut and cracked wheat pilaf. Downstairs, it's all bare tables, blackboard menus and large chatty groups drinking raki and grazing over tasting boards of daily-changing dips and breads. Spicy chicken wings come hot off the mangal (grill) and borek pastries are plump with pastirma (cured beef) and kashar cheese. Desserts run from a popsicle of mastic and tahini booza (ice-cream) downstairs to an upstairs kunefemsi, a rich, sweet syrupy bomb of kataifi pastry, crushed pistachios and kunefe cheese topped with pistachio ice-cream. Two different experiences, but eventually, everyone finds their own level.