RestaurantsLondonSouthwarkSE1

Harden's says

Taking over the former Rabot 1745 site at Borough Market in March, a Greek steetfood specialist with a 2-metre rotisserie cooking whole lamb and pig on the spit. Upstairs, opening in April, is the more laid-back Oma, with a raw bar. The team behind the pair have good pedigrees, including Manteca, Kiln and Sabor.

survey result

Summary

David Carter (of Smokestak fame) has gone Greek-with-a-twist with this March 2024 newcomer, which occupies the ground floor of the two-floor site in Borough Market that was previously Rabot 1745 (RIP) – (see also Oma, which is on the floor above, and can be entered separately). The street-level part of the operation (Agora is ‘market’ in Greek) is in modern taverna style, with a two-metre rotisserie, where whole lamb and pig are cooked on the spit to deliver Eastern Mediterranean street-food plates. It opened too late for survey feedback, but in his May 2024 review The Evening Standard’s Jimi Famurewa loved its “almost illegally fun” atmosphere and “epic” dishes.

For 34 years we've been curating reviews of the UK's most notable restaurant. In a typical year, diners submit over 50,000 reviews to create the most authoritative restaurant guide in the UK. Each year, the guide is re-written from scratch based on this survey (although for the 2021 edition, reviews are little changed from 2020 as no survey could run for that year).

Have you eaten at Agora?

2 - 4 Bedale Street, London, SE1 9AL

What the Newspaper Critics are saying

Evening Standard

Back on more familiar positive-review territory, Jimi Famurewa enjoyed some “surprising and utterly scintillating” cooking at David Carter’s “twin-pack of blockbusting Borough Market openings”, a Greek-inspired upstairs-and-downstairs pair which “draw their power from a kind of sophisticated primality”.

Although Agora (meaning market) is “almost illegally fun” on a Friday night, Jimi feels that its food sometimes lacks direction. “In my view Oma, the Greek word for ‘raw’, is the one to go for.”

The occasional intrusion of non-Greek elements – XO sauce from China, ceviche from Mexico – showed that Colombian chef Jorge Paredes was more interested “gently heretical capturing of culinary essence” rather than authenticity. All the better, in Jimi’s view: “the combination of ancient Greek simplicity and definably London gastronomic rule-breaking is nothing short of, well, epic.”

Jimi Famurewa - 2024-05-05

The Daily Telegraph

William Sitwell was dispatched by his editor – clearly against his will – to Greek restaurant Agora – the more informal sibling to Oma upstairs, which other critics have raved about, and where booking is available. Poor William had to queue outside with his family for 45 minutes, and once inside could barely hear above the “yellingly loud room”.

“The dishes match the hubbub, unfussy and canteenish. Sort of like street food or festival nosh that you bung in as the din ensues,” he reckoned.

That said, William had the good grace to praise a “wonderfully garlicky borani – like tzatziki on acid – topped with flattened and crisp garlic”, and a  “fabulously authentic” Greek salad with “not a lettuce leaf in sight, just cucumber, tomatoes, onions and some creamy cheese on top, and those rustic, teeth-challenging rusks with their lovely balsamic-like sweetness”. 

All in all, then, a place for teenagers rather than this particular adult.

William Sitwell - 2024-08-25
2 - 4 Bedale Street, London, SE1 9AL

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