Amid a warm welcome from staff, the busy deli-cafe was full to bursting with families and couples eager for a lighter style of New Year meal.
The veg-forward menu draws on Levantine and Middle-Eastern cuisine, so you can be be sure that whatever you order, it will be healthy and packed with flavour.
Even the clementine and pomegranate mimosa I ordered felt less sugary than many cocktails.
The menu encourages sharing so start with the warm folded ladopita flatbreads – useful for scooping up salads or juices – or the crunchy za’atar pita chips dipped into yoghurt dribbled with smoky chili oil.
Ottolenghi are famed for their bowls of salads, heaped temptingly in the window, so this is a great spot for both vegans and veggies.
They’re also great to share as starters. We halved a creamy burrata with almost sour plums, chili and sorrel, which were a nice counterpoint to the caramel char of grilled hispi cabbage on a dreamy smear of pumpkin polenta, flavoured with rosemary.
We were happy with both our mains; starting with a flavourful sea bream with roasted fennel and chili butter, followed by a knockout slow-cooked lamb shoulder, sticky with its clementine glaze, served with crisp/sour pickled Kohlrabi.
Wines come by the glass at a modest 125cl, or for dry Januarists there are flavoured Kombuchas and Daily Dose juices such as the carrot, apple, turmeric and ginger which had a pleasing zing to it.
If you are trying to stay lean and attack the gym, it might be hard to keep that New Year resolution to cut out sugar when faced with the cornucopia of Ottolenghi desserts.
My creamy white chocolate cheesecake tart, encased in pastry, arrived with a blob of raspberry compote.
Other options include a moist carrot and walnut cake generously topped with a mound of cream cheese icing, a flourless orange and almond cake with chocolate ganache, and a pistachio and tangerine cake with yuzu icing.
You get the picture – perhaps best order one to share.
As well as breakfasts, lunch, and dinner, the Hampstead branch offers children’s menu of hummus and carrots, tomato pasta, cod goujons and lemon chicken thigh with veg which are a perfect antidote to ultra processed fare.
Ottolenghi is at 32, Rosslyn Hill, Hampstead.
