The Guardian
Grace Dent was transported back to a 1980s Duran Duran video by a former Lloyds Bank now converted into a “cinematic” triple-height Lebanese restaurant that is a very different proposition from all those “tiny, homespun restaurants typically anchored around Edgware Road”.
Even so, Kinz is “far from showy”, and the “vibe across much of the menu is elegant sparseness: nothing is over-garnished or served with frippery” – “no bells, no whistles, just Lebanese food cooked with immense pride and an urge to be accurate.”
The stand-out dishes include slow-cooked spiced chicken that is “home cooking in the most complimentary sense”, and a chocolate cake to a recipe from Elene, the mother of founding brothers Jad and Karim Lahoud, that is “dense, dark, damp and oozing”.
Grace Dent - 2026-08-16The Observer
Tanya Gold found much to her liking at a Lebanese restaurant that has taken over a former bank building in a London district, Notting Hill, whose allure she has never understood.
Very fresh hummus, meat kibbeh of ground lamb and beef, and arayes kafta – minced lamb with cinnamon and Lebanese seven-spice wrapped in flatbread and sliced into spirals – were all “very fine”, and very filling.
So much so that she could barely manage a “wondrous dish” of spiced chicken with rice, part-steamed, part roasted in a celery, onion and chicken stock, with roasted cashews and almonds. But at least she could enjoy the gases it gave off: “I think no cuisine smells quite as good as this, except Thai possibly.”
Tanya Gold - 2026-10-18
