Bankside, Greek Restaurant Guide

David Carter (of Smokestak fame) has gone Greek-with-a-twist with this March 2024 newcomer, which occupies the ground floor of the two-floor site in Borough Market that was previously Rabot 1745 (RIP) – (see also Oma, which is on the floor above, and can be entered separately). The street-level part of the operation (Agora is ‘market’ in Greek) is in modern taverna style, with a two-metre rotisserie, where whole lamb and pig are cooked on the spit to deliver Eastern Mediterranean street-food plates. It opened too late for survey feedback, but in his May 2024 review The Evening Standard’s Jimi Famurewa loved its “almost illegally fun” atmosphere and “epic” dishes.

On the top floor of the Borough Market site that was Rabot 1745 (RIP), David Carter’s late-spring 2024 newcomer (see also Agora) opened just in time to inspire one early report rating it very highly. The press meanwhile have gone into full-on meltdown over what The Times’s Giles Coren hails as the “hands down, pants off run around screaming, slam-dunk best-of-the-year-so-far joint in central London”. The carefully researched dishes from Colombian chef Jorge Paredes are, according to The Evening Standard’s Jimi Famurewa “gently heretical… rather than authentic” – or as Giles puts it “Greek in spirit but Turkish, Yemeni, Italian, Lebanese, not fusion, not parodic, not taking the piss” – leading to results he hails as “genius”. Top Menu Tip – the spanakopita, which leaves Coren riffing on W.H. Auden (“Cut off the telephone. Stop the dog from barking with a juicy bone”) and which The Guardian’s Grace Dent terms “frankly obscene”.