Lebanese Grill Express.

Lebanese Grill Express

Camden's licensing panel had to read a 380-page objection pack before it could rule on this charcoal grill, and on 4 December 2025 it took away the shop's permission to serve between 11pm and 1am (Camden New Journal).

Why go

A bartender at Mikkeller told Jeff to come here late, and that is the strongest thing anyone in the trade has said about the place. The grill opened on Leather Lane in 2021 and built its crowd on TikTok, on meat platters that cost very little and arrive very large (London Now). Dr David Wolfe KC, who lives close enough to have an opinion about the extraction flue, told the licensing panel the shop was well run and that its staff were friendly and courteous, dealing well with a wide range of customers each day including late at night (Camden New Journal).

What surrounds all of that is documented at length. Environmental health officers brought the licence review saying warnings had been ignored. Three ward councillors, jointly, called the shop a source of "significant public nuisance, disorder and environmental degradation" running back more than three years. The Met made representations supporting revocation. The business answered in writing that it measures decibels from a sound meter and warns any customer over 35, and that "there is no anti-social behaviour other than people visiting to enjoy grilled cuisine." Both sides are quoted below, because both are on the record and neither is ours to settle.

Order this / avoid

• Order: a charcoal-grilled meat platter, which is what the queue is standing there for, and chicken off the grill while it is still moving. Portions run large and prices run low, and that is the proposition.
• Avoid: counting on it after 11pm, because the licence that allowed it is revoked and an appeal is the only thing holding the hours open. Carrying the tray onto the Bourne estate, which is the specific complaint residents have been making for three years. And read the hygiene line below before you decide.

What locals & experts say

• Camden New Journal, 28 November 2025, Caitlin Maskell, on what the panel was handed: Councillors were due to meet last night, Thursday, to rule on a licence review of the Lebanese Grill in Leather Lane, but first had to wade through a 380-page report packed with accounts of late-night disturbances, messy streets, and a smoky extraction flue blackening brickwork. The hearing has been triggered by environmental health officers who said warnings had been ignored.1
• The defence, from a neighbour, in the same piece. Dr David Wolfe KC: It serves well-prepared, well-priced freshly-cooked food. Another resident, Rafi Faruk, called the councillors' language unnecessarily inflammatory.1
• The owner, Zac Khan, after the decision: People forget this is not the same market as it was 15 years ago. It's now all youngsters drawing that crowd and things have changed. He called the ruling more of a racism thing because of the type of customers we get, and said the shop had offered to put in security.2
• The residents' association, same piece. Melanie Tew, its chair and a resident of the Bourne estate for 30 years: The whole estate has been covered with Lebanese Grill debris.2
• Camden Council, on the record: Due to ongoing noise and disturbance issues, we revoked the late-night licence for the Lebanese Grill Express at a panel meeting last week which means they can no longer serve hot food and drinks after 11pm.2
• Nobody who writes about food has been. No critic, no chef, no guide, nothing in the London chef-vote file. Every judgment of the cooking in this entry comes from a licence hearing, a social feed or Jeff's bartender.

Good to know

• Where: 84 Leather Lane, Holborn EC1N 7TT, at the Hatton Wall end. Chancery Lane or Farringdon tube.
• Hygiene: the Food Standards Agency records a rating of 0 out of 5, inspected 4 February 2026 by Camden, FHRSID 1453220. The three component scores are hygiene 20, structural 20 and confidence in management 20, where lower is better and 20 is the worst band available on each. Scoring the bottom band on all three at once is the most serious result the scheme produces. No re-rating is pending, and the inspection is six months old, so it is current.4
• Hours, and why they are uncertain: Camden revoked permission to serve hot food between 11pm and 1am on 4 December 2025. The business appealed, which under the Licensing Act keeps the existing hours running until a court decides, so it is still trading to 1am. The council put the hearing in August 2026. Check before you plan a late one.
• Booking: none. It is a counter, you queue, you take it away.
• Who runs it: the local paper names the owner as Zac Khan. A company called Lebanese Grill Express Ltd was dissolved in November 2024, but its registered office is in Rainham and nothing seen connects it to this address, so treat that as unconfirmed.
• Sites: there is a second Lebanese Grill Express at 80 Brick Lane E1 6RL, in a different borough, with its own hygiene record and a rating of 4. This entry is the Leather Lane shop. Nothing on this page applies to Brick Lane.
• Provenance: this page was deleted from the database on 29 July 2026 under the old safety-override rule and restored on 30 July 2026 under ADR-0022, which requires disclosure rather than removal. The finding is disclosed above and the venue is not a first-three recommendation while it stands.

Jeff's take (his words)

• Note: "Late night for good Lebanese food. Mikeller bartender rec"
• Rec via: a bartender at Mikkeller, unnamed in his note. A working bartender pointing somewhere after a shift is the second-highest grade of evidence this database recognizes, and it is the only trade voice on this venue.
• Open question for him: which bartender, and when. If the tip predates the licence review and the February inspection, it describes a different shop from the one trading now.

Verdict

listed — It sits on the board, and it stays there honestly. A bartender at Mikkeller sent Jeff here for late-night Lebanese, which is the kind of tip this database exists to carry, and the charcoal grill plainly does something right: it draws a queue off TikTok for cheap meat platters, and a neighbour who lives with the smoke still told the licensing panel it 'serves well-prepared, well-priced freshly-cooked food'. Everything else argues for keeping it exactly where it is. Camden's environmental health officers brought a 380-page review pack in November 2025 saying warnings had been ignored, the Met backed them, and the panel revoked permission to serve between 11pm and 1am on 4 December. The shop trades late only because it appealed, and the court hears it in August 2026. Then the Food Standards Agency inspected on 4 February 2026 and gave it zero, scoring the worst available band on hygiene, on structure and on confidence in management at the same time. No food writer has ever assessed a plate here. That is not enough to send anybody across town, and it is enough to keep the pin, the bartender's word and the whole record in one place for whoever needs it at midnight.