Mamounia Lounge - Knightsbridge

I’ve got to be honest and say that I was invited to review Mamounia lounge.  They fired over an email asking if I wanted to try them out and looking at the menu I couldn’t find a reason not to say yes.

If you haven’t heard of the Mamounia Lounge Knightsbridge it's just down the road from Harrods on Brompton Road.  They have another outpost in Mayfair as well and I think it’s fair to say they are going for a more luxurious take on Lebanese and Moroccan food.

Once you get through the doors it’s annoyingly dark, there are rose petals on the tables, a somewhat excessive cushion to customer ratio, and a DJ playing chilled out house music to a mostly young and international crowd.  We order wine and pester the waitress to see what she recommends and wait for our food to appear.

We go for the hommus kawarma, a pastilla of chicken, and sambousek cheese.  The combination of juicy meat, crunchy nuts, and smooth hommus quickly went as we tore strips of fresh bread and dived straight in.

Sambousek were delicious little cheesy parcels with light and buttery pastry shells.   The savoury pastilla was made up of delicate layers of pastry with chicken, almonds, and cinnamon, dusted with icing sugar.

It had a sweet edge was but the dish was light and nutty and surprisingly moreish.  Next up was the mains and a really special seafood tagine and a decent lamb shawarma.  The tagine was the absolute highlight of the meal; delicately spiced, and the sauce had a richness and depth of flavour that really impressed me.

The lamb shawarma was tasty as well; a good plate of juicy meat and great pickles but while nice by any standards wasn’t as impressive as the tagine.  By this point we were stuffed but that didn’t seem to put the waitress off and she ordered us some desserts…

Out came a very acceptable chocolate fondant and a selection of crack like baklawa.  We decided to roll ourselves outside and get an apple flavoured shisha whilst we finished our drinks.

We shared the pipe and people watched for a while; it was pretty cool just watching the world go by.  All in all I have to say I’m actually pretty impressed with the experience.

The manager was really friendly and the service staff professional and attentive as you’d expect given they knew who I was. If we were paying for the bill we’d have been looking at seventy pounds a head with wine and a couple of cocktails.

If I was paying with my own money would I come back?

Absolutely.