london
Bubala
• Middle-Eastern• Spitalfields
About the restaurant
Following a series of supper clubs, founder Marc Summers opened Bubala in October 2019, with the kitchen run under the steady hand of chef Helen Graham. It quickly received acclaim and rave reviews from the likes of Jay Rayner and Jimi Famurewa.
The food here is inspired by the founder and chef’s shared love of Israeli and Middle Eastern flavours. Standout dishes include labneh with confit garlic and za’atar, oyster mushroom skewers with tamari, coriander seed and maple, and fried aubergine with zhoug and date syrup, alongside great cocktails.
As you might expect from a Shoreditch restaurant, the dining room is minimal and tastefully done, with a wraparound bar counter that’s perfect if you’re just dropping in for drinks and snacks.
Reviews from the Web
Critic reviews
The Infatuation
This is the kind of delicious the Middle Eastern style food at Bubala is. The kind where you become a danger to yourself.
The Guardian
The small lurch into Yiddish is appropriate. Bubala is roughly the Yiddish for sweetheart or darling. It’s what a mother calls her child; what a husband calls his wife. Yiddish is the language of the Ashkenazi Jews of central and eastern Europe.
Standard
Bubala, of course, gets its name from a Yiddish term of endearment favoured by grandmothers. And so it’s fitting that the sharing menu is a long, enticing affair, geared towards the sort of resounding feed dished out by a matriarch who might complain you are getting thin, even as they grab a love handle.
The Telegraph
The food happens to be mostly vegetarian, and when it’s not, it’s vegan. But don’t let that put you off if you’re the sort that would go down with the ship demanding meat.
Time Out
The rustic-chic space, with its unplastered walls, stylish woods, dark tiles and designer lighting, is easy to love.
The Nudge
They’ve taken over the artfully distressed dining room that was once Gul & Sepoy, keeping those beautifully rustic peach plastered walls, and lightening things up with sweeps of aqua across the ceiling.
- 65 Commercial St
- E1 6BD
- London
- +44 20 7392 2111
- Visit website
