Stone Cave

Walk into Stone Cave and you're immediately hit with the smell of meat hitting hot coal—the kind of aroma that makes you regret whatever you ate for lunch. It's a stripped-back sort of place on Kingsland High Street in Dalston, all exposed brick and open kitchen where you can watch the grilling happen. The menu does the classics properly: the adana is properly spiced, the lamb shish actually tastes like lamb, and the meze spread (hummus, baba ganoush, the lot) shows they're not cutting corners. It's the kind of neighbourhood Turkish that's packed most nights because word has got around that they actually care about what they're doing here.