Comptoir Libanais

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Kitous’ restaurants were the first in London to merge traditional Arabic cooking with the easy contemporary eating to be found in the expanding network of Comptoir Libanais restaurants. Last September, Random House published Comptoir Libanais: A Feast of Lebanese-Style Home Cooking, showcasing just how easy, healthy and accessible Lebanese food is for everyone. This wouldn't be a Middle Eastern recipe without heaps of fresh herbs. Forget the sad little supermarket bundles and try to find yourself a proper market stall bouquet, if possible. Parsley is popular, used by everyone but Helou, but so is coriander, which makes its way into all the recipes. I like a combination of the two - the sharp, pepperiness of parsley and the aromatic freshness of coriander, both in sufficient quantity to turn the mixture a bold green colour. Put the aubergine, peppers and courgette into a large roasting tin and drizzle over the oil. Season, then toss everything together with a large metal spoon so that the pieces are well coated in the oil. Roast in the oven for 30 mins until golden. Middle Eastern dining is a social affair where dishes are selected and shared with friends. Customers can forget the knife and fork – mezze is finger food – and select a mezze platter and some wraps for a picnic outside, or in their own office. Alternatively, they can take a couple of richly-flavoured tagines home to pass off as their own cooking!

The first Comptoir Libanais opened at Westfield Shopping Centre in November 2008, with four more following in London. Further openings include Duke of York Square in Chelsea (pictured below), Bluewater in Kent, and in the London airports – with more to come. Recognising the popularity and wide availability of Italian food in the UK, Tony’s aim was and is to establish Lebanese and Middle Eastern cuisine in the UK in a similar way – creating consciousness and understanding amongst UK customers. Of course, there is a very long way to go before this can be achieved, but Comptoir Libanais has been taking successful strides along the way. A Feast of Lebanese-Style Home Cooking makes this exotic cuisine easily accessible at home, with 80 recipes for dishes that blend traditional cooking with modern flavors. Fattoush is not fattoush without bread – that’s the whole point. Any kind of Middle Eastern flatbread will do (or, in fact, most kinds of flatbread); the important thing is it must be crisp. There are various ways to achieve this, from Baxter’s frying to Honey & Co’s grilling, but the most reliable, if you can bear to turn the oven on, is to bake it, which gives a dryer, crunchier result; the dressing should supply all the oil the dish needs. If it’s too hot for the oven, toast the pitta as Roden does. Some recipes season it with sumac, but as this intensely lemony spice is a key ingredient in the salad itself, the bread is, I think, better left plain as a contrast.By the time the pomegranates are in season, tomatoes won’t be, and tomatoes are( in my opinion, at least) key here. I like the idea of using a variety of colours and sizes, chopped “two or three different ways … to give the salad some texture”, as Honey & Co recommends, but go with whatever looks best if you don’t have a big choice; cherry tomatoes are usually the safest bet, but everything should be decent in midsummer. There’s no need to peel them as Roden does but, if they seem watery, rather than solid, you might be advised to core them, as in Baxter’s recipe.

This wouldn't be a Middle Eastern recipe without heaps of fresh herbs. Forget the sad little supermarket bundles and try to find yourself a proper market stall bouquet, if possible. Parsley is popular, used by everyone but Helou, but so is coriander, which makes its way into all the recipes. I like a combination of the two – the sharp, pepperiness of parsley and the aromatic freshness of coriander, both in sufficient quantity to turn the mixture a bold green colour.There are recipes for breakfast, mezze, salads, grilled dishes, fish, soups and stews, grains and desserts in the book. I’m sharing the recipe of one of the dips from the book, as for me this is the perfect healthy party food. I made the Artichoke and Tahin dip from the Comptoir Libanais cookbook and I’m sharing the recipe with you below. This dip is healthy and vegan! Everyone uses some sort of raising agent, whether bicarbonate of soda or baking powder, to make their falafel extra fluffy. As there doesn't seem to be much in the way of acid in the recipe, I'm not surprised to find that Ottolenghi and Tamimi and Roden's baking powder proves more effective. Vegetables Kitous’ first foray into the restaurant business came at the age of 22 and in 1993, when he opened his first restaurant, Baboon. He drew on his cultural heritage to create Levant in 2000, the restaurant which raised the profile of Middle Eastern restaurant culture in the London scene, and in 2004 he opened Levantine. The success of Comptoir Libanais restaurants centres on an easy, relaxed cafe-style of food: light Arabic home cooking mixed with familiar bistro flavours and techniques. Tony Kitous’ recipes combine fresh vibrant vegetable dishes with simple grills, flat breads, grains, herb salads and dips. Pastries are richly flavoured and delicate, made with syrups and spices. Absolutely the menu for today and adaptable for the home cook.

Bringing together the passion of owner Tony Kitous, the extraordinary designs of award-winning graphic artist Rana Salam, and bestselling author and photographer Dan Lepard, the Comptoir Libanais cookbook blends a vibrant culinary tradition with modern flavours and cooking methods I’m keener on ingredients that add more in the way of texture and flavour, with cucumber falling firmly into the first camp (unless you thinly slice it and salt it for an hour, as Roden’s recipe in Jane Grigson’s Vegetable Book suggests, when it tastes pretty good, but feels distinctly limp). Try, as Ottolenghi and Tamimi write, “to get small cucumbers for this … they are worlds apart from the large ones we normally get in most UK supermarkets” – less watery, and with more bite. If you can’t find them, then scoop out the seeds, as Baxter suggests. The Cookbook is officially called Comptoir Libanais – feasts from the Middle East (translated in Dutch to ‘Comptoir Libanais Feest! – Feestelijke recepten uit de Libanees Mediterrane keuken’). The book is filled with recipes to make a party from every meal. It’s really inviting to ask your friends over and have a food party. Like tabbouleh, this is a dish that requires a generous hand with the herbs, as Helou reminds us. The usual suspects, parsley and mint, are the most popular choices, although Honey & Co go for the rather intriguing oregano, which I love, but which tastes dangerously uncanonical. Roden’s coriander is similarly daring – I think it works, but others aren’t convinced. In any case, parsley and mint just taste right; and if it ain’t broke …Felicity Cloake’s perfect fattoush. Photograph: Felicity Cloake for the Guardian The perfect fattoush