Tas Restaurant

Good value for London. 12£ for 2 courses. We got the hummus and feta salad. Free bread refills were nice as was the small dip and olives served as you ordered. House wine was fine. We got the chicken kebabs and the minced spiced lamb kebabs. Both were excellent and served with couscous. Having some hummus left from the 1^st course was a nice accompaniment to the kebabs. All in all a nice meal for the money.

Turkish food is very close to my heart due to its amazing similarity to Greek food, especially the cuisine of northern Greece. That is why when I went to Tas I immediately recognised half the dishes as being shared by both countries and it did make me slightly nostalgic of having home made food cooked by my grandma.
While my friends decided to go for the most widely known dishes of kefte and a stew I decided to try the hunkar begendi, a dish with mashed aubergine, vegetables, cheese and pieces of lamb. I have to say the flavour and the quality of the dish were amazing, very hearty and perfect for those rainy days when you want something warming and homely. Absolutely loved it!
As this is a chain all over London I would totally recommend checking it out and trying some of the stews and proper cooked food!

It was heaving in there last night! I can understand why, because the food is such good value for money. We came in as a big group and ordered off the Sahan menu which provided a variety of starter and main course selections to suit most tastes. The staff were friendly and were very organised. We didn’t have to wait long for the food to come. The lamb shish was delicious and the portion size was just right. The red lentil soup did not disappoint. I did get food envy when one of us ordered a calamari main dish… which I will definitely be trying next time I visit!

On a quick visit in my old hood, decided to go for Turkish food, I had to another Tas, but not the one in The Cut. Made a last minute reservation, told them our preference, but was not accommodated.
The restaurant’s seating is very crowded, there is no privacy and very cramped in between table.
The food is good, and the service is efficient. We ordered the run of the mills of Humus, a bit more olive old would have been great, the bread was good. My dinner companion had a Mixed Grill — Karisik Izgara: A mix of grilled chicken, lamb & kofte, but the favor was lost in the pool of tomato sauce. I had a Asthma Yaprakli Sardalya-​Sardines wrapped in vine leaves and ezme salata.
I thought the mixed grill is very good, the seasoning and taste are authentic, (too bad for the sauce) I like my sardines, it was cooked nicely and still juicy.
That is why it only gets a 3 stars from me.

My partner and I are both vegetarians, so I generally love Turkish food, alongside other eastern Mediterranean cuisines, for offering tasty, good value dishes, with lots of possibilities, from the traditional starter-​main-​dessert approach, to meze, which are the original sampling venues. My partner and I opted for vegetarian meze.
On the plus side, the experience delivered good food, a decently priced white wine and reasonably swift service. On the down side, I found it a bit noisy (others describe it as ‘buzzing’, so it depends what you are after). The tables are also quite close together, so don’t come here for a date, unless you wish to entertain your neighbours with your amorous sweet nothings.
The worst bit was the service: the surliest of waiters gave us the meze with a meat option instead of the veggie one. We complained and fortunately the item was replaced and we got a different waiter. The rest of the meal went swimmingly — leave room for baklava as dessert — except a slightly overly-​long wait for the bill.
Better service would have delivered four stars, but I’d be willing to eat here again.
Update: 5÷10÷14 — Another meal, this time trying the «Renk» meze menu (the vegetarian option). A meal for three with some baklava shared for dessert, and soft drinks came to £20 each. Much better service this time, so I’ve upped it to 4 stars.

There’s no food I like better for sharing with friends than a big, fresh mezze feast. That’s exactly what we were in the mood for after Matisse-​ing at the Tate, so 4 of us wandered to one of a few Tas restaurants in the area.
The sound hits you first as you walk in, as the place is always full and conversation lively, with tables crammed close together. We were luckily seated straight away but in the calmer (and ten degrees colder!) downstairs area.
Bread arrives straight away — warm, fluffy and very dunkable in everything else we ordered (hurrah for the free refills). I’ve been disappointed with the meats/​grills here before so instead we went to town on a range of hot and cold mezze type dishes, which hit the spot.
They do the basics like humus and tabbouleh well, and I tried to throw in as many dishes involving goat’s cheese as possible which I love. One of my fave hot dishes were these courgette, goat’s cheese and carrot patties which I wouldn’t have picked myself but were so tasty.
I should say I would totally recommend these dishes by name if I was able to pronounce them — I usually give this a good go so as not to be rude, but hearing me attempt the likes of ‘bademli peynir ezmesi’ would have had the waiter in stitches. Don’t worry, ‘the artichoke one’ and pointing works just fine too ;)
All good stuff then, but no more than 3-​stars after being let down by some questionable service — most of the waiting staff were unable to tell us what anything was, whilst the rest pretended they hadn’t heard the question. There was a farcical sequence when we asked for the freezing air-​con flow to be aimed away from us, only for various waiters to each turn it up or down as they passed. Also the guy pouring our water seemed to get more on the tablecloth/​my friend’s mobile than into the glasses.
So bring some patience (and maybe a cardigan) and you’re all set to affordably stuff yourself happy!

Not quite as cosy as Tas Pide down the road, Tas on the Cut is still one of my favourites. It’s a large buzzing dining hall and we didn’t have to wait long to be seated despite being a large-​ish group. The waiters were noticeably well trained considering Tas is affordable as well as delicious.
I hardly ever make it past the Mezze as the dishes are too tempting not to order one of each … on this occasion we decided to go with one of the set menus which offered great value (even though they accidentally gave us one of the old menus showing a recent price increase … unfortunately, we had to pay the new, higher price!).
We all ordered different main courses all of which were excellent and quite unique. It is great to see them made in the open kitchen.
The Turkish house wine is a winner, too. A good evening all around.

A lovely place to stop off and to escape the rush of London. A stones throw from Southwark station this place has plenty of seating and a few tables outside.
My friend and i ordered a few Meze dishes between us Patates Koftesi, Domates Soslu Kofte, Kalamar all really flavoursome and good sized portions for two people as with Tapas food you can get carried away and order too much, but i’m pretty greedy so it’s no hassle for me !!
Staff we’re all quick on the draw, all polite and helpful.

A solid choice for business lunches.
On balmy June days Taz’s street facing floor-​to-​ceiling windows are swung open wide, letting in all the summeriness that’s outside.
Dishes are, in my opinion, conventional but not unworthy of the £11 a pop. To be fair, I found these to be common problems among the mid range to swankier restaurants in London: always gun shy on seasoning, too light a touch on fat and salt, and trying much too hard to be creative (though Taz isn’t guilty of the latter).
Wayne’s fav pick: lamb kofte atop leak bedding or the lamb kebab. Ask for the special chili to pair (it’s also been referred to as the ‘salsa’).

This place does a great pre theatre menu for under £18… you get two small starters and a main. I had artichokes and squid for starter (squid for great, artichoke was a bit average) and my main, a prawn casserole was so so good. My friend and the sausage to start and they tasted beautiful! One of the waitresses snatched our bread bowl off the table when we still had bread in it… it was very rude and strange. When we paid our bill we asked to take the 12.5 service charge off and when our server asked why we told her about what happened with the other waitress and she didn’t apologise or anything and this makes me not want to go back… we didn’t do anything wrong!!! It was a real shame because there was a lot right with this place too.

Coming from Metro-​Detroit, I didn’t have a ton of options where Turkish is concerned, I was excited to one day gorge (rather shamelessly) on Turkish delights of all kinds as soon as I moved to the UK. The Tas restaurant group was on my list.
My husband surprised me with a trip there after a rather rough day and it was, to say the least, a welcome escape.
The restaurant is crowded. Even on weekdays, so book ahead. You’ll find a cozy table awaiting you. Sit, order a bottle of the house red (which we polished off, thank you very much!) and cheese pâté and olives. Cheese pâté, cheese pâté — where have you been my whole life? What I had mistaken for hummus was an aromatic myriad of flavors, slightly strong but appetizing nonetheless. We pleaded for more while awaiting our mains to arrive.
Being vegetarians, Tas offers you a large variety of options. Instead of ordering large mains, we ordered about five or six small dishes, cold and hot meze, ranging from the halloumi salad to the borek, everything perfectly portioned for two very hungry (and buzzed from Turkish wine) people. Everything came quickly, making it slightly difficult to find space on the table but no worries — we dug in. The service was friendly, efficient but almost hard to reach — with this many patrons, it’s almost hard to get the attention of the staff. Dessert was my favorite — stuffed apricots, a recent obsession of mine.
This was my first Tas experience, I will be sure to come back! I’m rating it fairly for a good first experience but don’t know too much about Turkish cuisine, this being my second visit in a Turkish establishment. I look forward to many more! Some of the dishes were a bit bland but all were fresh and tasty.

Really liked this restaurant!
My friend and I both got the three-​dish menu (two starters and a main each), and even though it was delicious, the loss of a star is mainly because although we asked if it would be too much food for just two people, our server assured us it was our best option. Good god — maybe if you haven’t eaten in days, and/​or are making an effort to eat as much as you can, it really is the best option, but next time, rest assured– we will be getting the two-​dish option (and trust me, that’s more than enough for dinner).
As for the food itself– as people who aren’t exactly Turkish food connoisseurs, we were more than delighted with the quality of our dishes. I think overall, we tried the hummus, falafel, tabouleh, marinated squid, mixed vegetable cous-​cous, and stuffed vine leaves. All of them were fantastic– I’d be hard-​pressed to pick a favourite! As for desserts, we were too full to try any, but the group next to us had the baklava, and it looked amazing.
Definitely a place to revisit, now that I’m more familiar with their portion sizes!

Great turkish restaurant with good service. A walking distance to Waterloo tube station, is a great place for casual dinners or romantic ones. The décor is pretty and have enough space between the tables to make you feel confortable to talk about whatever you want.
At first you might get surprised with the price, but the portions are very big and normally you won‘t need to spend more than 17.00 GBP per person.
I recommend the Mussaka, it is one of the best I ever had.

Absolutely delicious, absolutely perfect
We had the Renk menu, a superb assortment of 10 hot and cold meze and everything was so fresh, so good, so well prepared and well presented but even so, we could not finish, because the portions were extremely generous. Impressing, we ate for less than £25 for two.

Tas bills itself as a Mediterranean restaurant, but the dishes are mostly Turkish. The rose-​flavored Turkish delight at the host stand sealed the deal (btw, did you know that Greeks make the same treat and call it Greek delight? I think the Turks should look into this!).
The décor at Tas is very pretty, with low, funky lighting and large black & white photos of whirling dervishes on the walls. It is an inviting place.
We were quickly greeted and led to a table. Then we sat, and sat, for a very long time without any acknowledgment. Eventually, the manager or owner came over to take our order. He was rather curt for most of the evening, though he softened up just a little by the end of our meal after we chatted him up a bit. Service was slow throughout the evening. We often had to ask more than once for something we wanted or needed.
Our trio ordered a Cyprus cheese appetizer to share. The cheese was grilled and served with a garnish of pickled veggies. It was delicious. For entrees, we tried calamari, chicken kofta and a red meat kofta that may have been lamb. The kofta dishes were spicy and quite good, but the calamari had too much breading and lacked flavor.
We debated about having dessert, but after spending too long sitting with dessert menus in hand, we decided to cut our losses and call for the check.
Overall, I’d give the food four stars and the service two.

I don’t think we really ate the right things in here, but there’s not much to be said about this restaurant beyond the fact that it’s mediocre. I’ve had better Mediterranean food. Expensive for dinner too.

Waren am 31.12.11 zu Besuch. Ohne Reservierung. Haben trotzdem gerade noch einen Tisch bekommen (18:30h). Es gab ein Menü mit vielen Vorspeisen, Hauptgericht und Nachtisch. Geschmacklich wirkte alles etwas authentischer als bei deutschen Orientalen. Alles war sehr lecker und reichlich. Die Preise sind voll ok. Werden im nächsten Jahr wohl wieder hingehen.

We came here on the recommendation of a friend and it was just like she said. You need to come here with a big appetite.
There were 3 of us and we chose the set menu. We got a selection of tapas to share as the starter and we could chose a main each. The tapas were great and plentiful and came with unlimited bread. These were all vegetarian and tasty. We couldn’t possibly eat all of it and still have room for the main, so we surrendered to have our table cleared when we still had some left.
The mains were ok. I had a mixed grill and cous cous which was a little bland. The chicken was overdone, but the other meat was tasty.
We all had a lager each — that was the only beer available, just one item called «lager»!
The atmosphere was good, this place is obviously popular on a Friday night. I thought the service was efficient and friendly, but it took a while for us to get the bill.
Overall, I liked it, but it felt a little overpriced for what it was (around 25 pounds each for the set menu and a lager).

17.95 GBP gets you a great selection at this wonderful place. In this expensive town that is quite a deal.
Walked by several times as it’s in the ‘hood, but finally stopped in Saturday night, and they could seat the 3 of us almost instantly. Lots of people, lots of kids, lots of smiling faces. All good signs.
We ordered the meze meals @ 17.95 and wow! what great tastes. Everything had that lovely spicing vs yogurty creaminess, everything was very very good. The bread was fresh, warm, toasty and the perfect device for dipping in.
Some of the best food on The Cut, check it out! Enjoy!

ou know those days when you wake up craving chickpeas? No, me neither, but the Vole pleaded pulses so I cancelled a planned trip to Hawksmoor (the things we do for love) and we headed to Tas on The Cut. It’s one of the first and largest branches of this thriving, good value Turkish chain and our bill came to an end of the month pleasing £42 including a bottle of wine and coffees.
If they’ve skimped on anything, it’s not the décor. Clean light woods, plants and linen tablecloths take this flagship upmarket enough for that snooty auntie, if not a key client. The wipe-​clean laminated menu lets the side down a little, but that’s a minor whinge… The food is good, simple and authentic (at least to my untutored palate). We go for one of the set meze menus, the Renk, they’re all broadly similar combinations of hot and cold small plates but this one includes Borek, small filled, fried, filo parcels I’m an absolute sucker for. There’s also a two course, more Anglicised menu, ideal for snooty auntie.
Standouts include the aforementioned Borek, hot but ungreasy, stuffed with soft cheese and spinach, a smoky stewed aubergine number, palate cleansing parsley and mint tabbouleh, fresh and crunchy and some excellent bread. Less of a success were the deep-​fried mussels, little chewy sacks of salt in a too thick batter, and a solid falafel, puckish in the wrong way.

Zugegeben wirkte die Einrichtung anfangs etwas befremdlich auf mich, etwas Kantinen-​mäßig statt high-​class — die Tischdecken, der Service und die Speisen halfen über den ersten Eindruck aber hinweg.
Die Karte ist unglaublich umfangreich und bietet eine besonders große Auswahl an vegetarischen Vor– und Hautspeisen, so dass man hier getrost immer wieder und wieder herkommen kann, ohne die gleichen Gerichte zu essen (essen zu müssen). Es besteht also Aussicht auf einen erneuten Besuch, um sich durch die ganze Karte durch zu probieren!
Die gefüllten Äpfel (mit Reis, Nüssen und Rosinen — etwas süßlich) und der Lauch mit Linsen, Kichererbsen an Joghurt und Couscous haben vollkommen überzeugt! Die Portionen sind überschaubar, mit Vorspeise aber durchaus ausreichend und die Preise für eine überdurchschnittliche Qualität angemessen. Unschlagbar der Preis für den Apperitiv: Pimm’s, Spritzer, Martini — alles für (in London wirklich NUR) 3,95 £!
Etwas befremdlich war auch die Art zu bedienen: ich glaube, ich habe den ganzen Abend über kein Gesicht doppelt an unserm Tisch gesehen. Etwa 6 Kellner haben uns während unseres Aufenthaltes gehätschelt, immerhin hat es gut funktioniert.
Zum Abschluss ein türkischer Kaffee, nach Vorspeise und Hauptgericht und dem Appetizer vom Haus (Brot, Oliven, Tzatziki) war leider kein Platz mehr für ein Dessert. Noch ein Grund wieder zu kommen!

My sister and I met a friend for dinner last night and this area seemed to be a ghost town with many of my restaurant choices not open on Sunday evening. By the way, the new iPhone Unilocal app is brilliant, fast and responsive in finding nearby restaurants.
So we all went to The Cut, which is usually reliable for eating places. The Anchor and Hope was closed, so we settled on Tas on the opposite side of the road.
Tas is part of a chain of Turkish restaurants in south London. The menu has many Mediterranean staples but also some more interesting options as well.
The service was very efficient with dishes and orders arriving promptly. Tap water was provided without any complaint.
We started with deep fried salmon cubes served with sour rose sauce, spinach and feta cheese boreks and fried egg with oak smoked cured beef. The salmon cubes were moist with a good crunch from the batter contrasting with the nice sauce. The boreks were nice. I was intrigued with the egg and cured beef but sadly the beef was far too salty.
For main course, I had a mixed grill of chicken, lamb and kofte, which was lovely and moist if a touch over-​seasoned. Sis had diced lamb, tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, peppers cooked with herbs and our friend had minced beef and couscous balls, organic chickpeas, baby potatoes & dried red basil. Both dishes were pronounced nice by those who ordered them but tasted quite similar.
For dessert, we shared a sultac rice pudding made with rice, milk, rose-​water, corn flour, orange rind and mazaki. Indulgently creamy, it was a nice end to the meal.
A good solid restaurant which stood in well for other better establishments, which were closed