Döner Kebab

Döner, a giant lamb kebab grilled on a vertical spit, is Turkey’s most popular fast food and you find specialist cafés serving it throughout that country. There it is eaten only with flat pocket breads and some mint and flat-leaved parsley, invariably washed down with raki, the anise-based national spirit akin to a fiery pastis. The addition of shredded cabbage and tomato slices is an inauthentic British idea or, rather, a way of making the pitta sandwich look larger.

While döner is now common throughout Britain, it had a slow start, though it was a relatively early player in our burgeoning take-away culture. The very first döner take-out is thought to have been The Golden Horn, opened by Mr Arif in Wardour Street in Soho in 1971 (four years before McDonald’s established its toehold in Greenwich) and sadly closed down some years ago. His formula was absolutely classic and used only the meat from the hindquarters of lambs. Few of today’s döneri are made to such exacting standards, but his was undoubtedly as good as it was ever going to get.