The new Morito serves small tapas and mezze style plates, like its sister restaurant, with the additional offering of larger dishes for the whole table to share. Think kid mechoui with preserved lemon and harissa to devour amongst a group of friends. There will be weekend breakfasts too, including home made Moroccan breads, Turkish egg dishes and churros – fried dough pastries – to dip in hot chocolate (they say they’re for the kids, but we know we’ll want them too).
Samantha Clark and Marianna Leivaditaki (ex-head chef of Moro) have travelled through Spain, Morocco, Greece and Turkey sourcing ingredients and suppliers to bring a unique authenticity to their dishes, introducing us to flavours they have discovered on their travels. What they don’t import, they create themselves in house – homemade butter and haloumi cheese, pickled za’atar and soft pistachio leaves can be seen in jars in the open kitchen.
I visited soon after its opening in May and have already returned. When you’ve tried the cheese fritters with Cretan thyme honey, you’ll understand why. Diners can choose to sit around a marble topped horseshoe shaped bar or on smaller or large tables around the room, depending on the party size or if you’re dropping in for a snack or settling down for a feast. Like their other restaurants, the Clarks manage to create uniquely individual interiors, reflecting the colours, textures and objects discovered on their travels, making the space more like a stylish home than a restaurant environment.
Small earthenware bowls of spices sit on all the tables, to sample with a basket of bread freshly baked in house, including a pillowy soft, chewy flatbread sprinkled with za’atar which we devoured immediately before ordering a selection of smaller plates to share between us.
The aforementioned cheese fritters with Cretan thyme honey were made with cheese sourced especially from Greece that had a remarkable airy, creamy texture inside their crisp, sesame studded shell. A spiced chopped salad with avocado and chilli butter created a refreshing balance (and made me immediately want to get the recipe), as did the beetroot and sweet herb borani. We had dishes of tender grilled octopus with a silky fava bean puree and some toothsome white-fleshed turbot with a dusting of paprika and a hint of sherry vinegar, evocative of coastal Southern Spain. Charcoal grilled quail provided mouthwatering bite sized pieces of meat with a fragrant pistachio and orange blossom sauce.
As with the rest of the menu, desserts continued on a strongly seasonal note, including perfectly ripe, creamy Alphonso mango, scattered with pomegranate seeds for a textural contrast and an exotic layered rhubarb, crisp filo pastry and labne flavoured with gum mastic and dusted with crushed Iranian pistachios.
Eating at Morito is like a journey of discovery – of flavours, textures and combinations of ingredients. What the Clarks do so well is presenting ingredients in their truest form; their tastes highlighted rather than embellished or disguised with complicated cooking. Their use of natural cooking fuels, like wood and charcoal, bring a rustic authenticity to the dishes while sensitive and informed use of spices and herbs, perfect seasoning and knowledge make every mouthful sensational.
This review originally appeared in the June 2016 edition of House & Garden Magazine. Images courtesy of Issy Croker.
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