Central London has thousands of restaurants and most of them change every few years. A place that keeps the same name and the same cooking for more than four decades tells you something about the food.
Maroush opened on Edgware Road in 1981 and we’ve been cooking there ever since. The menu has grown over the years but the way we cook is much the same as it was at the start.
Where to begin with the menu
A Lebanese meal works best when the table fills up slowly. We usually suggest a few cold mezze and some warm bread first, then adding more as you go. Hommos Sesame is a good first order. It’s thick and nutty and finished with olive oil, and it’s often the plate people talk about after they leave.
Moutabal is the smoky one made from charred aubergine. Next to the hommos it gives you two very different things to scoop up with your bread. From there most tables move on to the grill, where kebabs come off the charcoal with dark edges and plenty of juice left inside.
A sandwich worth the trip
The Shish Taouk Sandwich has been a lunchtime favourite for years. The chicken is marinated long enough for the flavour to go all the way through, and it’s folded into warm flatbread with our garlic sauce. Quite a few people come in just for that sauce. We see a lot of the same faces at lunch who order one and eat it and head back to the office inside half an hour.
The salad that balances the table
Fattoush is the side we’d order with almost anything. We make ours with cos lettuce and tomato and pieces of toasted pita that soften a little as the dressing soaks in. Mint and sumac give it a sour freshness that some people love straight away and others slowly come round to. Tabbouleh is the other salad you’ll see on the menu and our guide to fattoush vs tabbouleh explains the difference if you can’t decide.
Where to eat in central London
Our Edgware Road restaurant is the original. The building has two floors and room for more than 150 guests. Smaller tables tend to stay on the main floor while bigger groups usually end up in the dining room downstairs. Most evenings bring live Lebanese music and belly dancing and we keep the doors open until 2am. That makes it one of the better options in the area for a late dinner, which we covered in our piece on late-night dining on Edgware Road.
Some evenings call for something quieter. Our Beauchamp Place restaurant in Knightsbridge is a short trip from the West End and so is our Kings Road site in Chelsea. The rooms look quite different from Edgware Road but you’ll recognise the food the moment it reaches the table.
What diners and critics say
Maroush has picked up some generous reviews over the years. A Time Out reviewer called one meal here among the best meat-based meals they had ever eaten, and The Guardian said it was worth the journey. The late food critic AA Gill praised how fresh and fragrant the cooking was.
Reviews often mention the people who work here as well. A common story is a first-time guest who had no idea what to order and left with a list of dishes for next time because someone took a few minutes to explain the menu. Regulars tend to notice the small things like herbs that are bright and green and hommos served at the right temperature.
For a table of four we’d start with five or six mezze and one mixed grill to share. You can order more once the first plates are finished.