Chargal – the name a compression of charcoal and mangal, the Turkish word for grill – is the latest project from Serdar Demir, the restaurateur behind The Mantl in Knightsbridge, a man who has spent the better part of 25 years thinking seriously about what modern Turkish dining in London could and should look like.
The answer, it turns out, is a three-storey restaurant and bar on Berkeley Street, steps from Green Park station. Chargal occupies the former site of Jeru, a high-end Eastern Mediterranean restaurant known for its open-fire cooking and theatrical, design-led dining room – a legacy it now reinterprets through a distinctly Turkish lens.
The vibes
The space is enormous – long, dramatic rooms across three floors, each with its own personality but all sharing the same DNA of dark elegance and warm amber light. A social and mezze-led ground floor; the first-floor dining room is where the tablecloths come out, velvet booth seating lines the walls, statement crystal chandeliers hang from exposed timber ceilings, and peach-toned walls glow in a way that makes everyone look slightly better than they deserve.
Below, the Coal Lounge handles the part of the evening that officially shouldn’t be happening on a weeknight. Moody, ostensive, adorned – and also, oddly, the kind of place that looks better the longer you stay in it, which is convenient, because you will not be leaving early.
Do what you can to secure a seat with sight lines to the open kitchen, where you’ll see all the chefs in action. It not only adds to the experience, but gives you a welcome head start on spotting your dishes as they arrive.
What’s on the menu?
Starters
The menu is lengthy and has plenty of mouth-watering sharing dishes on it – far more than the koftas-and-kebabs baseline your imagination might have set. Luckily for us, we arrived with absolutely no idea what we were getting into, which is the best possible state in which to discover a notably good restaurant.
The mezze (£29) arrives in a bucket of ice – packed with whole smalls carrots, corn and radishes. A secret garden of sorts, though not as secret as it looks – the entire room immediately swiveled to look at your table the moment it landed in front of our eyes(and inadvertently, we have done the same to other tables. It’s just a beautiful, bright, colourful display).
Alongside the vegetables: three large pots of glorious dips, specifically a muhammara, a cacık and a hummus, all of them flavour-packed and jostling for the top spot on the podium – a competition the hummus won by a far margin. It was runnier than what we are used to (nothing like the hummus you get from the supermarket and most certainly nothing like the hummus you would make at home). This is pure melting gold, and we suspect the secret is going heavy-handed, no holding back, on the tahini.
The ratio of vegetables to dip in the mezze was, mathematically, quite inharmonious – but we’re not complaining. Quite the opposite, actually. Hand us a pide – that round, puffed, pillowy Turkish loaf made for mopping up dips — and we’re fully equipped for a very good time.
The chargrilled halloumi (£14) comes nested in cherry jam – the tartness of the jam cuts through the punchy salt of the cheese like a shock to the system – the perfect proof that opposites attract.
We also had a selection of pickled vegetables and some vegetarian koftas in lettuce leaves, which were a decent bite and a very kind, off-menu adaptation of the traditional meat koftas. Not the traditional article, but clean, well-seasoned, acidic – and exactly the detour you want when you’re deep into a procession of mezze with the cocktails still going.
Mains
Mains brought chunky fries with braised mushrooms — meaty and substantial, draped in a thick cream sauce that sits somewhere between a béchamel and a proper gravy, rich and muted and deeply comforting — rescued at exactly the right moment by a mustard relish on the side, piquant enough to cut through all that earthiness and remind the plate that it still has things to say. The kind of dish that rewards patience: the more it all gets mixed together, the better it becomes.
Dessert
Dessert was the irmik helvası (£12) — semolina halva paired with clotted cream ice cream, a brilliant interplay of textures: the dense, yielding halva set against the cool melt of the cream, finished with a generous scattering of pistachio. We have absolutely no complaints.
What we do have is an ongoing, low-grade grief about the baklava, which was sadly not available on our visit. Going to Chargal without the baklava is, we believe, like going to Nina and skipping the tiramisu – the irmik helvası is a capable supply teacher but the lesson we actually came for remains unlearned. We’ll be back for it.
And what’s to drink?
There are some very tempting cocktails on the menu, but we suggest you order The Chargal. Having the same name as the restaurant, you would assume this is the matriarch of the cocktails family, so the bartender will put their best foot forward here.
It’s a whisky-based cocktail with Hennessy VS infused with apricot and peach, Disaronno amaretto, citrus and peach bitters and rooibos vanilla, and it’s served smoked under a glass dome that’s lifted when it gets to your table. A+ for the performance, but the drink did taste fabulously good – smooth, fruity, smoky, with a real depth to it. We would say it justified every penny of the £18 you pay for it, especially in this part of town.
We also ordered the Bloom & Blush, a gin-based cocktail which, for gin lovers, is a great find. One unexpected highlight: a Turkish wine, a brand that’s – excuse the pun – brand new to the restaurant. It was deliciously fresh and gently sweet on the palate, but with enough character to give European wines a run for their money. A perfect match for our meal, and it left us with the distinct feeling that Turkish wine is one of the more underrated things in the world right now.
The service
The hospitality is truly noteworthy at Chargal. Not attentive-in-a-hovering-way, not professionally warm in that technically-correct-but-hollow manner that Mayfair can sometimes produce, but genuinely, culturally, instinctively hospitable. As soon as we sat on our tables, we were given a few drops of cologne to dab on our hands – apparently, a traditional Turkish gesture before a meal (a sanitiser with a much more pleasant and elegant smell, as we gathered). But that was just one in a million small gestures that we felt truly amounted to a lovely experience.
At the end of the our meal, for example, we also got a lovely Turkish tea delivered to our table, offered as a matter of course, no fanfare, just what is done. These are not theatrical additions bolted on for atmosphere (we would have cringed if they were)- they are the culture, and the staff carry them naturally, without self-consciousness, in a way that makes the whole experience feel like something closer to being someone’s guest at their very posh Mayfair house than a cold transaction in just another London restaurant.
The verdict
Chargal is not trying to be the best Turkish restaurant in London in the way that some restaurants try to be things – loudly, effortfully, at the expense of actually being good. The food and drinks are fantastic and the space is as grand and striking as it can be, but truly, this magnificent restaurant is worth a visit just for the relaxed atmosphere and the friendliness of the staff. Missing baklava aside, it is faultless.
Key details
Address: 11 Berkeley St, Greater, London W1J 8DS
Website: www.chargal.com
Socials: @chargalmayfair
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