ev, waterloo

Ev bar in Waterloo

This is one of those places that “you wouldn’t know it was there if you didn’t know it was there” kind of thing.  At least, that’s what I said to my mate on Wednesday when we went, and at which he looked at me blankly…so perhaps it’s only me who thinks like that.

I have been very close to this restaurant a few times, but had no idea of its existence.  It’s built into the railway arches between Southwark tube and Waterloo – running parallel to the Southwark end of The Cut (see here for it on Google Street View)

Ev apparently means ‘home’ in Turkish, and the place is split into three separate (but linked) arches.  There is a deli and cafe, a proper restaurant and then a bar serving hot & cold mezze, which is the ‘arch’ that we went into.

As we were just having bar mezze/tapas, I wouldn’t usually have posted about it, but it was actually pretty good, and I’d like to recommend it and bring it to people’s attention who (like me) didn’t know of its existence.

We went for 5 dishes – haloumi (pretty typical), hummous 9actually a pretty good one!), gorgeous flaky little borek (the spinach and feta pastries), wonderful pine nut and parsley filled kofte and the surprising star of the dishes, the calamari, which was perfectly cooked til tender, not at all rubbery and in a very impressive batter!

Each dish was less than a fiver – and they also did very goodm very reasonable cocktails – loved the Cosmopolitan!

If you need somewhere to meet in Waterloo, I would recommend – and I will definitely try the restaurant some time to see if that is as good!