Efes 2

Generally it is one of the tastiest Turkish restaurants I have tried here in London. Their food is better than the other Efes and more authentically Turkish I feel. They have great starters and the borek (cheese) comes nice and hot out of the oven and they have an amazing cheese mixed with chilli peppers for those who like to tingle their tongue with spices
Their grilled main dishes are very tasty and their chicken breast main dish is very tender and juicy
Dessert wise I was not a fan of their menu so don’t have any recommendations for that
Their service is good they are attentive and friendly. The restaurant is usually clean and it is well kept.
They do have a belly dancer programme which is really nice for a night out with family or friends for an occasion. I would recommend it highly as well for that

I visited this restaurant for the first time earlier this week. I found the waitstaff to be incredibly unprofessional, if not hostile and racist, and the food to be subpar (unsurprisingly, they got our order wrong as well).
After having been in the restaurant for ten minutes, the singer (in the downstairs seating area) came up to me and asked where I was from, to which I replied New York. She responded by saying «No no,» and stretched out the corners of her eyes (more commonly known as giving me «chink eyes»), apparently insisting that I explain my Asian heritage (instead of simply asking me if I was part Asian…). A bit later, my friend, also part Asian, asked if she could smoke a cigarette somewhere downstairs. Instead of explaining that it is against the law to smoke inside a restaurant in London, the male waiter said «Lady, what country are you from? You’re in England now. We have laws.» When I apologized for the miscommunication and told him that there was no need to be hostile, he said (strangely) «I’m from Nevadada lady, I know how to treat customers.»
We ended up leaving halfway through our meal because of the attitude of the employees. When we told the manager the waitstaff were being hostile at best, racist at worst, he insisted we were being too sensitive and that all the waitstaff were Turkish so they couldn’t possibly be being racist. He was dismissive and didn’t try to comp our bill or anything.
All in all, probably the worst restaurant experience I’ve had in London. I would strongly advise against visiting this restaurant.

Fantastic. I’ve been a stickler for food in this city, but I’ve had the best lamb chops of my life here. If you’re a group of three, order the mix platter and just sit back.
The kabobs are full and filling. I prefer them in a wrap over a pita. Overall, great service, nice people, cool outdoor seating and indoor vibe.
Like this place a lot

Maybe I was hungry. Maybe I was tired. Maybe I was just craving a bit of familiarity after a week of work travel. Maybe. I don’t know. Whatever, this place is getting four shiny stars from me when others are giving it less. It is round the corner from my work’s London office and across the road from the hotel so I’ve been here a good few times, both to eat-​in or to takeaway. It is always reassuringly full of big Turkish families or chattery, noisy, happy groups sharing mixed mezze platters and divine barbecuey meat dishes. Ahhhhh, yum. It has a warmth and a heart about it, this place. I highly recommend eating in and getting a mixed mezze to share. I kid you not, it’s like stepping back to the 70s, but not in a bad way, or a pastiche-​y cynical way — in a wonderful, homely, comforting way. The platter looks like a page from a ‘Cooking For Entertaining’ cookbook from 1974, all bed-​of-​lettuce, carrot roses and mounds of taramasalata moulded into a fish-​shape with an olive for an eye. The platter is genuinely delicious and there’s loads of it for your money. To finish, you must order the fruit salad which comes on an enormous and intricately carved melon basket, with a goddam Roman candle firework in the top. I’m not even joking! Yes, it is a bit cramped and dated, and yes it can get very noisy, and yes the service can sometimes be brusque and yes the takeaway kebab shop at the front isn’t separated from the main restaurant, and yes it’s probably not great to put fireworks in your food but for me, today, the food is tasty, plentiful and cheap (recommend the chicken shish box with chicken, bread, salad, rice, sauces etc for about 6quid), the service is cheery and efficient, the atmosphere is welcoming, and the wee dude at the takeaway now recognises me and greets me with ‘ahhhh, Glasgow!’ and sends me off with a smile and a little wink. All in all, just what I needed today when I was feeling lonely and anonymous in big old London Town. It’s just as good for the soul as it is for the hungry belly.

Delicious Kabobs! I order the chicken box, which came with veggies, rice, pita, and sauces. As soon as I ordered, the raw chicken was thrown on the grill to sizzle for ten-​fiften minutes. It’s very fresh. I might say it’s one of the best chicken kabobs I ever had. The outside was crispy due to the slight char marks, and the inside was moist and tender. Very delicious and full of flavor. It went well with the sauces, rice, and mixed veggies that came with it. For 6.50 GPB and this amount of food, it’s not bad at all!
The person preparing my food was friendly, while the cashier was not so customer friendly. I don’t think a single eye contact was made with the cashier as he minded his own business nonchalantly.

Rudest waiting staff in London. Food is very low quality and grossly overpriced. If you want the restaurant service equivalent of being dragged naked, feet first through a carwash this is the place to come. Avoid at all costs. I’ll certainly never be coming back.

Warning. This place milks every customer for as much as they can, in a very mercenary fashion. CHECK THE BILL!!! I was charged for bread I DIDNT ORDER and even a ‘cover charge’. When I questioned it, they became very aggressive. Be warned!!!

We pop in here ones in a while: really like the juicy chicken kebab. They are never stingy on the meat, sauce, salad and extra salad. Very well flavored.
They have a restaurant, never tried it! Only tried the «old guy in the front», he takes his time… won’t be rushed by staff or customers :) …it’s nice, funny.
I like! See you soon!

I went to the downstairs part of the restaurant. They wanted ten pounds before even ordering anything. I assume this was because of the Turkish singer present who in my opinion couldn’t sing. It wasn’t busy, so a rip off basically.

The food was delicious and I loved the entertainment.

After the massive renovation job, the place looks great. Food is awesome specially the Kebab. Service can improve a little bit and take away orders must be quality controled and double checked before given out.. .

«Live music» is defined mostly by someone singing karaōke style over a tape, but to be fair, they do sing actual live music now and then with a turkish harp type thing. Need to do a sound check though, loves, the balance was totally off.
It was fun but £120 for a bottle of bubbly, some poxy fruit (and they were not that good quality, not that ripe, but on the other hand, beautifully cut, if you look at it ironically…) and 6 pieces of balcava is beyond ridiculous.
The staff were friendly and fun and the other people in the restaurant jovial. come with friends and you should have a good time. And a much lighter pocket. Alternatively, come with a sugar daddy.

I’ve been here lots of times in the past, but one afternoon over the Xmas break I went for lunch with a friend.
We are both veterans of this fine Turkish restaurant and apart from a new glass front-​door, nothing much has changed inside.
It still has the quaint old restaurant feel inside, with lots of signed photographs from some of the many BBC celebrities that have eaten in here over the years.
Unfortunately one massive change was noted, and it was one that will stop me from visiting again.
The two of us ordered some Doner Kebab, 2 lamb chops each, some rice, pitta bread and two cokes.
A fair meal, but certainly not one that costs £60.
Yes, £60 for a Doner Kebab.
I’m sorry guys but this is a blatant rip-​off.
We mentioned to the waiter that we thought this was unfair, but he could only point to the menu and say that was the price that was written.
In all the years I’ve been eating here, I’ve never had to pay such an extortionate price, and in these tight financial times, I am certainly in no position to be blowing £60 on a Doner Kebab lunch, without even a glass of wine to wash it down.
Be warned…

Wonderful food. Good service. Staff aware of your needs. Enough food to take some home to enjoy another night. Watch out for the delicious banana liquor!

I have only had take away and the quality and flavor is good and the under £5.00 price for a kebab is great. The donner kebab in particular is a value as is has about 5 pound of meat!
I also run into cabbies in there often and one of them told me Efes 2 is on the cabbies «top 10» for take away in London — a better endorsement than mine!

As a vegetarian, there is one option: the vegetarian kebab, which isn’t even really that good. However the atmosphere makes up for it. When we entered the restaurant late on a Sunday night (it was the only place open), we thought we were going to some quiet little place, and the waiter asked us if we wanted to sit downstairs. When we walked down there it was like we had been seated in Istanbul. Live music that was great and a belly dancer who will come dance on your table! It was so exciting. This was my first Turkish restaurant experience, and I would definitely go back.

Sehr schönes Ambiente und gutes Essen. Da es sehr voll war, war es ziemlich laut

What the efes is Efes 2? Let me save you the trouble of discovering for yourself. It’s an all singing, all dancing, tragic Turkish restaurant. As the card says, «upstairs is our normal restaurant» meaning empty tables but reasonably priced menu. They do everything they can to force you downstairs for «live music and dancing 7 nights a week» which also comes with one of 6 set menus for £21 each not including drinks or gratuity. Nothing looked at all appealing so we pushed to either be moved upstairs or to see the normal menu until they finally relented.
The quality of food is truly terrible. It started with some dry pita bread and a plate of 6 «authentic mezzes», which somehow included canned baked beans. The others were too gross to touch.
We each ordered a main course, which were delivered by the waiters shouting out the number off the menu. None of us could remember the number but it didn’t matter because the each dish looked (and for the most part tasted) exactly the same. My friend ordered the mixed grill with aubergine, but there was no aubergine anywhere to be seen.
For dessert they brought out a platter of fruit with an orange carved out to look like a face with a candle inside — this was clearly not the first platter the orange had seen that evening. A hollowed out pineapple had some fresh but mostly canned fruit.
As we were waiting for the bill, the enthusiastic if off-​key live singer suddenly took off his jacket and tie to announce the arrival of the belly dancer. She did a little act with a sword, and then proceeded to grab men from the audience to dance with her, some of which complied and stuffed bills down her bra. Keeping it classy, Efes.
They ended up charging us for the bread and a per head charge for the lame fruit so that our total bill came to £30 per person. Totally outrageous. I’ve had better food at McDonald’s.

I really had fun here but it had little to do with the food. We ate, yeah… we ate, but that’s not the main reason to go to this place (oh alright then, the food was a bit bland… dry salmon, soggy vegetables); you should go for the Basil Fawlty style service. Go because the last thing they want to do is deal with you, but they kind of have to and it’s hilarious… the belly dancing was second to none too. And erm, great mango juice!