Review: Turkish brunch at Tabure Kitchen, St Albans

Ever since I visited Tabure when they opened back in May last year, I’ve been telling everyone who’ll listen how good it is. I even insisted we went there for my birthday meal in July – which was an excellent idea, by the way, as that menu is made for sharing among a big group of people. Trust me. Go with like ten of you, order all the starters and a bunch of pittas, and be happy little campers.

And now they’ve launched a brunch menu. I flipping love brunch! You know this about me, right? There’s so much brunch on this blog. I was really excited about Tabure’s brunch menu though, as from what I saw of the preview pictures, it wasn’t just your standard Eggs Benny but something that I’d never seen or tasted before. Here’s the menu – intriguing, non?




So as soon as the menu popped up on my Twitter feed, I sent it to Matt and we agreed that we needed the Village Breakfast in our faces, stat. I’d been thinking about doing something nice to say thank you to my parents for, you know, putting a roof over our heads and all, and brunch seemed perfect. They have an apartment in Turkey, near Bodrum, and go a couple of times a year so it instantly piqued their interest and was a great option to share between the four of us.

That’s something to mention about the Village Breakfast – it can feed a village, hence the name, I assume! There are tons of little bowls and plates to choose from and we struggled to finish it all. In fact, there’s so much that they usually don’t recommend one breakfast per person – we had 3 between 4, didn’t finish everything and needed a little nap afterwards. JUST LOOK AT ALL THE THINGS.






It's not your normal brunch at all - savoury to sweet and back again, but you're encouraged to go at your own pace and try a bit of everything. It's all SO good. The zucchini pancakes and the feta phyllo pastry rolls are hot and freshly cooked, and full of flavour and I loved the olive tapenade and the savoury dips.

But the highlight by far were the two sweet dips. Turkish ricotta with blackberry jam was delicious, especially scooped onto warm bread, but it was overshadowed by the Kaymak - clotted cream with honey. Everything was overshadowed by the clotted cream with honey. Everything I've eaten since was overshadowed. GOD that was good. Not licking the bowl was one of the hardest things I've ever done.




Because there's so much food, it's their policy at Tabure to generally give you one less breakfast than you have people - so for 4 of us, we had 3 portions, which was more than enough - and a nice surprise when the bill came! But the only issue with this option is that there aren't enough of the delicious feta phyllo rolls and the zucchini pancakes to go around. We split them in half so all got to try them, but it would be great to be asked the question when ordering. It's also worth noting that you will need to order extra bread for all the dippy things and jams - so many jams. But the meal was so reasonably priced anyway that ordering a bit of extra bread wasn't a problem, and as it came warm from the oven, it was absolutely worth it.

If there's only a couple of you, there are plenty other brunch options - I want to try the eggs, too, which sound a little like Shakshuka, and the porridge with tahini sounds intriguing. I could happily work my way through the entire menu, to be honest. I probably will.

The atmosphere in Tabure is just to die for. It's such a friendly, familiar place. Mark and Hulya, the owners, made a point of coming to say hello to us and the other customers in the restaurant, and while we ate I could see Hulya in the kitchen - they're truly hands on. It's clear that Tabure is their passion project, and I love that it's doing something different and truly authentic. It's always one of the first places I recommend to people in St Albans, and it was wonderful to take my parents there and hear how much they enjoyed it. I can't recommend enough. Go today!

Tabure Kitchen is at 6 Spencer Street, St Albans, AL3 5EG and brunch is served 10am-2pm on weekends. I was not compensated for this honest review.