Le Chef Masgouf

One of the best meals of my life and easily the best Middle Eastern food I’ve had.

Its 4 PM and i had a long day and haven’t had a meal since lunch the day before.
You don’t care, how was the food you ask?
Well I ordered the masqof fish and dish of the day for my friend and we shared the arugula salad.
Dish of the day was makloobah, which is a rice dish with egg plants and lamb meat with some neutral spices in terms of heat.
The dish was tasty nice presentation but not a 5 star maybe 3.6
The fish was amazing chat grilled sea bass, ⁴⁄₅ star and worth the visit.
The place us in the mid to high range when it comes to prices when it comes to muffle eastern restaurants.
I like the street that it was on away from the edgware road fuss.

Thanks for Andrew M for inducting me into his alphabet dining club. We reached the letter ‘I’ this week and Andrew’s friend Sharon sorted dinner out at Le Chef Masgouf, announcing it as Iranian food. However, on arrival, we discovered that it was in fact an Iraqi restaurant, which fortunately still met the brief of starting with the letter I!
I think the watchword of the restaurant is generosity of spirit as we were plied initially with 3 free big plates of vegetables and pickles and again with free baklava at the end of our meal
We had a selection of cold and warm meze to kick off the meal. I get a little confused when dining at restaurants from countries in the eastern Mediterranean as they all seem to serve the same meze and I’m not sure which country would lay claim to the usual taboulleh, humus and tzatziki style dishes. The star of the starters though was the warm bread which had been freshly griddled and was perfect to sweep up those dips
We had 3 main courses, the best of which was an Iraqi classic Kouzi — slow cooked lamb shank served with rice cooked with saffron, raisins and pine nuts. Barbecued seabass was also good but the special of the day chicken briayani was a bit dry
Typical inoffensive Middle Eastern fare.
Roll on, J dining!

It’s a bit like those books they give you as a kid to teach you the alphabet, only this time I is for Iraqi, especially the food. The next instalment of our Alphabet Dining quest brought us to Le Chef Masgouf for some good traditional Iraqi eats.
We started with a mix of hot and cold meze. The hot meze is basically various deep fried items stuffed with meat. Seriously, what’s not to like about that? My favourite was a crispy thick pancake type stuffed with spiced ground meat. No idea what it’s called, but I recommend doing what we did and getting the sampling platter so you get a bit of everything. Cold meze was your standard hummus, moutabal, tabolueh and stuffed vine leaves. All tasty but the hummus and moutabal (smoked egg plant) were my picks and would easily been enough for a happy meal.
Mains were the Kouzi, grilled sea bass, and the daily special which in this case was a chicken biriyani. Kouzi is a slow cooked lamb shank served with rice and a tomato-​based sauce. The lamb was succulent and juicy and served in a massive portion though the rice and sauce were more filler than anything tasty. The grilled sea bass was the table favourite with tender flaky flesh and a light spiced seasoning. The fish was beautifully butterflied and a delight to the senses. Sadly the daily special wasn’t special at all with the rice being tasteless and the chicken dry.
A pretty good feast for 5 people came to just under £80 including service. That’s £16pp for some tasty food and they even give you a selection of baklava for free. If you want more dessert, check out Assal just down the road where a selection of traditional Persian sweets for 5 – 6 people will cost a mere £6, but more on that to come.

It’s not fancy but its food is fantastic!
read my review here

This is an Iraqi restaurant and the name Masgouf means the special Iraqi way that fish is grilled which is served in the restaurant. The food that I had there was good apart from a lamb shank cooked in tomatoo sauce (The first item in Iraqi specialities).
If you go there have the Seabass which is the highlight of the restaurant.

Quite simply the best grilled Sea Bass I have ever eaten.
The daily special is always worth checking too– one of the nicest I had here is a rice dish with 4 or 5 different fishes, some grilled, some fried, one in a stew.
Excellent value, and a welcome change from the monotony of every other restaurant in the Edgware Road area.

This is one of the very best persian restaurants i have been to in London. Do not be fooled by the rather sleeply look of the place since the food is to die for. The portions are extremely large and very reasonably priced for the quality. They have an authentic naan oven so make sure you try it. Some of the freshest bread i have ever tasted. The dishes are mainly variations on fish or meat skewered with rice. The flavours though are absolutely amazing. It is five minutes walk from oxford street so a perfect place to check out after a long day shopping. A lot of Persian and middle-​eastern are always food there which proves this is really authentic food