Selin Kiazim to return with the Istanbul-inspired Leydi
Inspired by Istanbul, Leydi will be located within the Ennismore-owned Hyde London City, which officially launches next month within the Spiers & Pond building opposite the Old Bailey.
Offering ‘generous, celebratory Turkish food meant to be shared and savoured’, the 90-cover restaurant will feature plush banquettes, warm lighting and ‘understated’ references to Istanbul’s architecture and interiors.
Breakfast options will include house-made pastries such as böreks and tahinli (a caramelised tahini spiral) and stuffed lavash rolls as well as egg dishes like Menemen.
Lunch dishes will include house-made döner with freshly baked lavash; a beef köfte burger with garlic tomato sauce; and dayboat seafood fried in a semolina crust and served with green chilli and coriander ezme.
Kiazim’s signature stone oven-baked Lahmacuns and Pides also feature on the menu.
In the evening, Leydi will 'transform' and take inspiration from meyhanes, the Turkish equivalent of a tavernas.
Menu highlights include mezes like muhammara, baked hummus with pastirma and smoked aubergine as well as Turkish mangal-cooked dishes including adana kebap; Welsh lamb kebap with dripping pide; and chicken thigh shish with a fragrant fenugreek marinade.
Desserts will include Turkish ice cream with pick and mix toppings; pistachio katmer; and the stuffed kadayif pastry known as künefe.
Leydi's kitchen will be overseen by head chef Halil Simsek, who previously worked alongside Kiazim at her Shoreditch restaurant Oklava and has also worked at a number of top restaurants in Istanbul including Ristorante Italia di Massimo Bottura, Toi, and Must.
The wine list will include raki, wines from Turkey, Lebanon, Greece and further afield in Europe.
Created by mixologist Kevin Patnode, the cocktail list will be big on drinks with a touch of spice and smoke with options including Lion Milk’s Spritz (raki, coriander seed, elderflower liqueur and sparkling wine).
Kiazim is best known for her Oklava restaurant in Shoreditch, which launched in 2015 and closed last year.
Following the success of Oklava, Kiazim and then business partner Laura Christie launched a second restaurant, in London's Fitzrovia, called Kyseri, which opened in the summer of 2018.
The restaurant was later converted into Oklava Bakery + Wine, which eventually closed in the summer of 2020 as a result of low footfall in the wake of the first national Coronavirus lockdown.
As noted in Restaurant’s trends predictions, Leydi will be one of a number of authentic Middle Eastern concepts to launch this year.
Kiazim will also open a restaurant in Amsterdam, where she is currently based, this year and is also understood to be launching a restaurant project in Istanbul.
