Picture of Troia, SE1 7GQ

Troia, SE1 7GQ

Mediterranean restaurant/cafe/bar on Belvedere Road near Waterloo Station.

The interior is brightly coloured and decorated, but in a tasteful way and not overdone. According to the Troia website, it seats 65. Note that the chairs are quite low - Kake was fine, but bob had a little trouble working out where to put his legs! They also have a fair bit of well-sheltered outside seating, and you can hire a hookah to take out there.

Kake and bob visited early on a Sunday evening in December 2008. We hadn't booked, but there were plenty of tables free.

We went for the "London set mezze" (£10/head), which included hummous with lamb, kisir (crushed walnuts with herbs and tomato sauce), tabbouleh, broad beans with yoghurt, spinach with yoghurt, imam bayeldi (aubergine with tomatoes), borek (fried triangular pastries with cheese in), falafel, chicken guvec (stew), lamb guvec, and some meat-onna-stick that I forget the details of. Bread came on the side, and was refilled when we'd eaten it all. We also got a side order of grilled chicken wings (£4.25 for a starter portion of four pieces). This was pretty much exactly the right amount of food.

The falafel were excellent; the fried shell was crisp and not too thick, and the interior was impressively light. The hummous was very good as well, with an evident flavour of tahini and a very smooth texture (it was as good as Kake's home-made stuff, a standard not many places come up to). The borek were light and not stodgy at all. The chicken wings were very good, hot and straight from the grill with charred bits, and like our other chicken dish actually tasted of chicken rather than bland factory-farmed pap. But really, it was all good. Nothing was below par.

Service was fine, and they had no problem bringing us tap water. A 12.5% service charge was automatically added to the bill.

Kake's verdict: I was very pleased with the food here and will happily come back (though note that I do live fairly close).

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Last visited by bob, Martin and Northern Steve, 22 January 2009.
OS X co-ord: 530738 OS Y co-ord: 179807 (Latitude: 51.502088 Longitude: -0.117773)
Last edited 2023-09-05 14:19:45 (version 7; diff). List all versions.