What is a Turk? When your parents hail from a land that has conquered its neighbours, and been conquered by its neighbours’ multiple times, when the bloodline has mixed so indiscriminately that your DNA is filled like a United Nations pamphlet, can anyone really claim to be solely one nationality?
I can’t.
My parents are both Turkish and Kurdish, the latter of which I do not speak or understand a word of as it was considered a dangerous language to repeat at home due to political tensions in the 90s. Couple that in with the fact that my mum identifies as a Sunni Muslim, and my dad is agnostic, at best. Not only that but he is from an Alevi background, a religion many of you would not have heard of but which makes up to 10% of the Turkish population. Alevism is less religion and more culture, I would say. They are a shamanistic people who worship the sun, love folklore and music and arts, and are extremely tolerant and loosely liberal in their practices. And from personal experience, every Alevi-identifying person I know eats pork.
So, there I am, half Turkish, half Kurdish, a mongrel of a person with DNA tests stating that I am in fact mostly Persian. My mum’s grandfather was an Armenian priest. You add that all to the mix and it’s no surprise I identify first and foremost as a Londoner, having been born in Dalston - the one cultural heritage I can say I definitively feel at 100%.
I eat everything. My dad eats everything. My cousins eat everything. Much like Aziz Ansari’s character ‘Dev Shah’ in Netflix’s ‘Master of None’, growing up I would be going out to eat pork all the time and keeping it secret from my mum. The taboo, temptress pig and my dirty secret. I’d chew extra Wrigley’s gum as my breathalyser kryptonite and try and mask my loin-filled mouth when returning home.
And yet, we have never had pork on the menu due to cultural sensitivities and fear of a backlash from the Turkish community. I couldn’t identify one Turkish restaurant in the UK which has pork on its menu, which is ironic because almost every caff I know in London is serving bacon, black puddings, and Cumberland sausages, and is run by Turkish families. But restaurants? We stay clear of that minefield, of fear of being ostracised, judged, shunned, and attacked. Which is odd because the last time I checked, alcohol consumption was considered Haram, but every Turkish restaurant sells Efes and Jack Daniels. I guess there’s levels to this religion game, and the pig sits at the top of the devil’s tree, its snout the pinnacle of hell.
Well, Mangal II has always done things a little differently. It’s why we are such a polarising restaurant (just look at our Google reviews, either 5*s or 1*s, rarely much in between). The dining public either likes what we’re doing and gets it, or really, really fucking hates everything we stand for. And what do we stand for? We stand on the principles of not being bogged down by tradition, by expectation. We are a London restaurant, first and foremost – as my first ever newsletter attested. Secondly, we have Anatolian roots. We use local, seasonal British ingredients with Turkish spicing and flavours, and use that as a template to harness historic Turkish dishes with a modern, local twist. That’s it.
My dad would tell stories of his childhood, and on occasion, they would hunt and eat wild boar. Technically speaking, having pork on the menu would be somewhat authentic to the restaurant’s ideals, yet to this day we have not been brave enough to dip our feet in the pool of delicious lard.
On Sunday February 2nd, we will rectify that.
Recently, we have started working with Alba – a service run by my good friend Bruce Clyne-Watson, a delightfully mischievous Scotsman with a heart of gold, and crucially, an arsenal of outdoor cooking units – spits, grills, rotisseries, all very metallic and heavy and chained and barbarically delicious as he sets up shop in the outdoors and cooks at weddings, festivals, private functions, and with us. Working together, we will be fusing braincells and creating menus to be consumed across the UK and beyond as we bring the Mangal fire-cooking experience to whoever wants it. Our first foray was a local collaboration at Abney Park as we cooked whole lamb and did a Turkish-inspired Sunday roast, which was a great success. Our next venture will be at Mangal II where we will be cooking the whole pig on our grill.
It is a brave but necessary step as first and foremost we want to create another joyous Sunday to the paying public, working together again as we gain our match fitness for the Spring/Summer ahead, and fundamentally, I want to be able to serve pig here – even if it’s just this once. Working with our head chef Jack Earls, the menu is an absolute belter. As much as Bruce is a very proud Highlander, Jack has strong family ties to the west of Ireland in Cork, this is meat and drink for him, too.
It feels ridiculous in 2025 to have to write a newsletter to soft-launch my personal ties with pork-consumption to have to try and justify such an event, but the world is where it is, and we cannot outpace it with modernism any sooner than the forces will allow. We’ve had copious amounts of lamb on the menu, beef, chicken, quail, duck, but never the forbidden pig. Personally, I view all farmed animals under one umbrella: tasty delights. I am a man of no religion, and far as I can tell, a supremely vast majority of my carnivorous customer base indulge in pork. We will be treating the meat with respect and flavour, like any other we have served. The menu we provide is not Turkish by any stretch, but every dish is finished off in our Turkish ocakbașı, which aligns our ideals as a restaurant. That charcoal-infused smoke, that flavour to me is inherently Turkish.
I respect religion. I respect the right for any person to practice their beliefs as long as it’s a personal choice and not forced upon others. I believe in religious tolerance, love and acceptance for all – regardless of religion, race, age, sexuality, gender-identity, social-economic status, disability, et al. We are all one. And for me, a pig is just a pig. An animal like any other – one I happen to find tasty and worthy of being grilled as its fats melt away and drip onto the coals, creating a vaporous enveloping flavour bomb as it rises from the ashes and coats the meat.
So join us on our MangAlba adventure, arrive with open eyes, pure thoughts, and hungry bellies (we will be serving pork belly btw – probably one of my favourite things in this culinary world). We are stepping into territories new, brave Young Turks that we are. History may judge as either pioneers, or monsters, or fools. But for that one day we will be feasting here at 4 Stoke Newington Road like we have never before. Tickets are live. Go get ‘em. And if you’re planning a wedding, or a fancy garden party this summer, hit us up. MangAlba is coming to y