There’s no denying I’ve been slacking off recently, but it’s BBQ season so there’s been little incentive to hunker down in restaurants of late. However, I’ve discovered as yet untapped reserves of traditional British spunk and renewed my commitment to unadulterated awesomeness and you get to sup at the cornucopia of my exertions.

The Missus and I popped into Vardar (https://www.facebook.com/VardarRestaurant), I believe the only restaurant in London dispensing cuisine from Macedonia (Population: 46). According to the Facebook page, Saturday night is the night to go, but we found ourselves there on a Sunday lunch time principally because we’re so hip that our Sunday lunchtime is everyone else’s Saturday night. Hardcore. The place is part of a large Victorian pub and over the wood-paneled walls is layer of Macedonian tat, gourds, zithers, lanterns and all manner of junk. A TV in the corner was playing the entries of a relentless series of dead-eyed ex-KGB milfs singing muslamic-tinged europop for the 2014 Eurovision Pre-qualifiers. My money is on Jelena Brocic. She’s got it.

1,085 views don’t lie.

In truth the food was nothing to write home about (daddy has little patience for my detail-laden screeds), but it was reliable, hearty stuff and I’m sure the mixed grill would have been good had I ordered it. The Balkanites are dead good at that. But I asked for something that was typically Macedonian and was directed by the friendly if suspicious waitress to the Macedonian baked beans and sausage. You know how I feel about foreign muck, but I choked it down anyhow. The baked beans weren’t Heinz-like and the sausage tasted like those big Herta horse-shoe sausages that remind me of my time in the cub-scouts. The Missus had stuffed peppers which were helped by salt and the dried, crushed chilli available on every table.

£23 for two people.

Always order the mixed grill.

МАКЕДОНИЈА!

Sausage and beans. Tavce Gravce. Actually quite tasty.

Stuffed peppers. Or Polneti Piperki. Not gestating alien embryos.

A tall, cool Kamenitza. From Bulgraria? No Macedonian beer to be had apparently and they were out of Macedonian wine. And they gave me sausage and beans. It’s entirely possible, in retrospect, that I went to a Happy Eater and not a Macedonian restaurant.

The Menu.

Charming stuff.

Royal coat of arms … Chinese restaurant lions … something is afoot. Something Macedonian.

Vardar
Kings Arms
The Vale
London
W3 7JT
Tel: 020 8743 2444
https://www.facebook.com/VardarRestaurant