30/06/2024

Elaf Lebanese Restaurant, Macclesfield

Elaf Lebanese & Syrian Restaurant in Macclesfield is perfect for both fans of Middle Eastern food and those looking for an introduction to authentic dishes. On my first visit, I found a great range of small plates to create a mezze feast, tender and juicy charcoal grilled kebabs, plus traditional desserts.

MIDDLE EASTERN FOOD: A PERSONAL FAVOURITE

As someone who earns their living by writing about and photographing food, I’m often asked what my favourite cuisine is. Although what I fancy at any given time changes, if I had to choose it would be the food of the Middle East.

True, I’ve never set foot in that part of the world. But its cuisine has been a massive influence on my own cooking. Long before the popularity of Yotam Ottolenghi, I was absorbing the work of early pioneers like Claudia Roden (especially her 1968 ground-breaking Book of Middle Eastern Food) and Marlena Spieler. Both these women were the first to bring to a wider British audience now familiar foods like falafel and hummus.

However, while those dishes are available almost everywhere, where I live Middle Eastern restaurants serving authentic dishes are not exactly thick on the ground. So, I was incredibly excited to recently discover Elaf in Macclesfield.

ELAF: LEBANESE & SYRIAN RESTAURANT

Last weekend, I found myself looking for somewhere to dine out. Which is surprisingly difficult if you want to eat on a Sunday evening from a menu not dominated by traditional roast dinners. Not finding anything suitable locally, I thought I’d give Macclesfield a try. I hadn’t been in a while, despite being only thirty minutes away. So I searched ‘Macclesfield restaurants’ and found the very useful website Visit Macclesfield and its list of Places To Eat in Macclesfield.

Given my love of Middle Eastern food, Elaf Lebanese Restaurant immediately jumped out at me. A quick phone call and my partner ID and I were booked in.

I hadn’t been able to find out much about Elaf, but it seems it was previously a takeaway-only establishment. In December 2020, under its new current name, Elaf relaunched as a restaurant, although still selling takeaways. Happily, after coming through the challenges of Covid lockdowns, it seems to have gone from strength to strength.

Although Elaf has its roots in takeaway (and takeaway orders were flying out the door on my visit), what you’ll find is most definitely a restaurant experience. The décor is bright, colourful and modern. On the walls are photographs of historic sites of the Middle East, the atmosphere enhanced by unobtrusive Arabic music playing. Tables are spacious, seating is comfortable, the mood friendly and casual.

Tip: After 5pm there is a small, free car park for customers. Look out for the sign a few doors down.

DRINKS

Elaf doesn’t serve alcohol, but you’re welcome to bring your own. There’s a £2 per person service charge for this, which I think is fair enough. However, the restaurant menu includes interesting-sounding homemade soft drinks and I think I’d go for one of those next time.

The homemade lemonade with lime and mint looks particularly good. And fans of Indian lassi can enjoy the Middle Eastern version: ayran. To complete the experience, hot drinks like Lebanese tea or coffee are served in beautiful, traditional cups.

ELAF FOOD MENU

On the menu, not counting desserts and drinks, there were around sixty dishes to choose from. They were split into Soup, Cold Starters, Hot Starters, Main Courses, Fish, Vegetarian Dishes (i.e. main course veggie dishes: there are lots more among the Starters), plus Salads & Side Dishes.

Although its name is often shortened to refer only to Lebanese food, Elaf also describes itself as a Lebanese & Syrian Restaurant. This is perhaps unsurprising as Lebanon was once part of historic Syria. Like much of the Middle East, Lebanon and Syria were subject to a series of occupations including the Ottoman Empire. This means that, even if you think you don’t know Lebanese food, it’s likely that lots of the dishes will be familiar to you as they’re eaten across the different countries and communities of the region.

My partner ID and I decided to share some starters, followed by a main course apiece plus shared sides. While choosing which to have, we were brought a dish of complimentary olives. Despite being someone who can usually take or leave olives, I really enjoyed these. Busy eating them while perusing the menu, I did forget to take a photo of them, though.

HOT & COLD MEZZE

Just like Spanish tapas, one of the joys of Middle Eastern food is sharing a collection of small dishes. Here, it’s known as mezze.

You can treat them as a starter, like we did, or make an entire meal of them. At Elaf restaurant there was plenty of choice with almost thirty starters. All but six were suitable for vegetarians.

BABA GHANOUJ

First up is Baba Ghanouj (£6.90). I think this is a great way to start as it’s an example of something eaten widely across the Middle East but with slight variations and sometimes different names too.

Based on mashed aubergine and tahini, this was a beautiful, appetizing looking dish. Similar to the Mutabal also on the menu, the aubergine and tahini had been mixed with yogurt and garlic. But this contained onions and juicy tomatoes too.

As well as a pool of golden olive oil across the creamy beige dip was a contrasting deep red drizzle of tart-sweet pomegranate molasses. Atop those were a few shiny pomegranate seeds and bright green parsley. Having eaten, and made, lots of versions of baba ghanouj and mutabal, this had to be among the best.

A very good, soft pita bread to scoop up the baba ghanouj was included in the price.

KESHKEH

As a lover of Middle Eastern food, lots of the dishes sounded familiar to me. But I hadn’t heard of Keshkeh (£5.95), so had to try it. It’s described on the menu as ‘homemade cheese mixed with crushed wheat, parsley and herbs’.

When it came though, I realised that the main element was something I knew and loved too. Wonderfully fresh and creamy, but without a traditionally ‘cheesy’ taste, surely this was based on labneh, the Middle Eastern yogurt ‘cheese’ made by straining yogurt?

I started to make my own yogurt about five years ago. Resulting in a generous supply, I’d often strain off lots of the whey to make thick, Greek-style yogurt. Strain off even more and you get labneh. I even wrote a blog post about labneh. But keshkeh, I’ve since learned, isn’t just labneh. Its pleasant, slightly grainy texture comes from mixing the labneh with one of my favourite grains, bulgur wheat.

At Elaf, the keshkeh came topped with olives, olive oil, sesame seeds and a sprinkle of spices. Apparently simple, this really was lovely scooped up with the soft pita it came with.

With generous portion sizes, we had some baba ghanouj and keshkeh leftover so kept them to eat with our main courses.

BOURAK

Our next dish, Cheese Bourak (£6.40), were examples of the widely eaten crispy pastries and pies which have many different names e.g. börek, bourekas and boureki.

Besides the cheese ones we chose, Elaf restaurant has three more: Spinach & Cheese (£6.45), Meat (£6.40) with lamb, and Chicken (£6.30). You are served four bourak per portion of the vegetarian ones, two per portion of the meat or chicken.

While you might expect a dryish, feta-type cheese in these pastries, I was pleasantly surprised to find long mozzarella-like strings when I bit into one. Looking at the menu again, the description says they’re stuffed with a selection of Mediterranean cheese so I might be right. Along with the mild cheese was a subtle herb flavour.

KIBBEH

While hummus and falafel are everywhere in Britain these days, I’d guess the only places you can try this next dish are those offering authentic Middle Eastern food. According to Claudia Roden (in her wonderful book Arabesque about the food of Morocco, Turkey, and Lebanon), kibbeh are a major part of the national dishes of Lebanon. And I love them.

While there are lots of different versions, those served at Elaf (a crispy shell of bulgur wheat and minced lamb, stuffed with more lamb, onions, nuts, and spices) must require a lot of skill. Which is why, as much as I love kibbeh, I wouldn’t even think of attempting to make them.

So, to learn that I can get Kibbeh (£6.40) in Macclesfield again is great news. (Fatima in the indoor market made lovely ones but, sadly, she’s no longer there).

Served with a rich, spicy sauce to dip them into (did I detect cinnamon and cloves?), it was a real joy to bite through the crispy shell and taste the moist, delicately flavoured filling. For lovers of lamb and Middle Eastern food, you really have to try kibbeh!

MAIN COURSES

For the main courses there’s a focus on lamb plus some chicken. Many of these feature meats grilled over charcoal including a range of kebabs plus lamb chops. There’s also meatballs and dishes combining lamb with different vegetables: aubergine, green beans, or okra, for example. Similar dishes, minus the meat, are available in the vegetarian section of the menu along with a veggie moussaka. For fish lovers, there’s marinaded and charcoal grilled salmon or sea bass.

KEBABS

Both ID and I decided to go for a kebab as our main course. Wanting to try as many different types as possible on our visit, we chose the two mixed kebabs. As it turned out, just one of these would have been plenty to share!

Each of the mixed kebabs contain THREE large skewers of meat which, initially, came as a bit of a surprise. But I probably should have guessed these would be larger dishes. While most of the kebabs ranged between £13.50 (for kofta kebab) and £16.60 (shish kebab), ours were more expensive.

I chose the Elaf Mixed Kebab (£18.99). This has a skewer each of Spicy Elaf Chicken, Kofta Kebab, and Cheesy Kofta Chicken. It looked incredibly appetizing: meat colourful from spice with plenty of charring from the charcoal grill, served on a bed of onions and parsley on a bright blue, long platter.

The spicy chicken was chunks of breast meat that had been marinated in a spicy red pepper paste before grilling. For the lamb kofta, the minced meat had been mixed with onions, spices, and parsley, while the mince for the chicken kofta also included mozzarella and peppers.

All the kebabs were cooked perfectly. They were juicy and tender with just the right amount of smokiness from being cooked over charcoal. The spicing was not overpowering, still allowing the flavour of the meat to come through.

My partner chose the Mixed Kebab (£19.99) which had two skewers of lamb and one of chicken. There was the same lamb Kofta Kebab as mine, a Shish Kebab of very tender, spiced chunks of lamb, and subtly flavoured Chicken Kebab where the meat had been marinated with garlic.

I thought that the quality of all the kebabs, the flavour of the meat, the well-judged spicing and seasonings, were very impressive.

They also came with a little pot of sauce each to add as much or as little as you liked. I got a mild garlic sauce, and there was a hotter, chilli sauce for ID. But we shared them both, along with that warmly spicy one we got with the kibbeh.

One thing to bear in mind if you order a kebab is that, unlike most of the other main courses, they don’t come with any accompaniments like rice or salad. So I recommend you head to the Salads & Side Dishes section to complete your dish (unless you’re having kebab as part of a mezze, perhaps).

SIDE DISHES

There’s a small selection of sides dishes with three salads, two rice dishes, and chips.

We shared a refreshing Arabic Salad (£6.25). This had very fresh and crunchy iceberg lettuce, chunks of cucumber and tomato, finely chopped red onion and lots of herbs. Dressed simply with lemon juice and olive oil, it was topped with a pickled chilli and the traditional bright pink pickled turnip.

Our second shared side was Arabic Rice (£6.10). This was perfectly cooked and lightly fragrant. Amongst the rice were strands of vermicelli pasta.

I love bread with kebab, so we also ordered more of those soft pitas that came with our starters. It was a very reasonable £1 for two.

Due to a combination of our greediness in ordering plus the generous portions, we couldn’t finish all our food. But Elaf was happy to pack up for us the remaining kebabs (about half of each platter) plus some leftover rice and a pita to take home. I noted we weren’t the only ones, with other diners not wanting to leave behind any of this delicious food either.

TRADITIONAL DESSERTS

Another reason we didn’t finish all our main course was that we both wanted to try Elaf‘s traditional Middle Eastern desserts. There’s half a dozen, plus a chocolate fudge cake. We chose two to share.

First up was that familiar favourite Baklava (£5.50). Here, layers of filo pastry were drawn up around a filling of butter, nuts and honey. Baked until crispy, they were finished with a generous dusting of ground pistachio.

Second was Kanafeh (£5.50) with more pistachios. Instead of being encased in sheets filo, here the nuts were sandwiched between two layers of the shredded pastry known as kataifi or kadaifi. Again, there was that sweet, rich combination of honey and butter.

ELAF RESTAURANT: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

If, like me, you love Middle Eastern food, then you must try Elaf Lebanese & Syrian Restaurant. Or perhaps you’re not so familiar with this cuisine but want to try some authentic dishes? Either way, and whether you’re looking for a casual meal or a special occasion mezze feast, I think Elaf would be perfect.

The service at Elaf was casual and friendly, with helpful front of house staff seeming genuinely interested in whether we were enjoying our food.

The quality and freshness of everything I ate was excellent. The presentation was beautiful too. When the array of hot and cold dishes was placed in front of us, it really did bring a smile to my face. And when I began to eat, the flavours were even better than I’d hoped.

At first glance, the kebab dishes we ate might seem relatively expensive, especially after adding accompaniments. But, once you discover the generous portion sizes are meant to be shared, it becomes very reasonable. For example, one of the mixed kebabs we had, plus salad and rice, shared between two works out at around £16 a head. Or even less if you swap the rice with pita at 50p each.

But there’s a wide range of other delicious dishes too, including hot and cold mezze most of which is priced around the £6.40 to £6.90 mark.

Finding absolutely nothing I could fault, my only regret is that I didn’t hear about Elaf sooner.

Highly recommended.

Elaf: 14 Jordangate, Macclesfield SK10 1E2. Reservations here or call 01625 618636.