Umut 2000 Harringay

Six London chefs put the ezme here on the New York Times list of the twenty-five essential dishes in the city, because at most ocakbasi it is a mushy paste behind plastic and at Umut it is chopped to order (Time Out).

Why go

Green Lanes runs on charcoal, and this is the room the food-obsessed use as the benchmark. The ezme arrives made to order, tomato, parsley, onion, red pepper flakes, sumac and chile, dressed with olive oil, salt and pomegranate molasses. The lamb ribs come off the ocakbasi with the fat still going and the meat pink through the middle, and The Infatuation's Jake Missing, who scored this address 8.2, calls them "one of London's great go-tos" (ref). The practical difference from the Dalston Umut is size: this one is vast and a little dark, built for ten people and a table full of mixed grill. The two restaurants have been under separate ownership since at least September 2025, so treat them as two kitchens with a shared name.

Order this / avoid

• Order: the lamb rib platter, then the ezme, and let the table share a mixed grill. Lamb chops if the ribs have gone.
• Avoid: treating the ezme as a side salad while you wait, and assuming the Dalston branch's house rules apply here. Different premises, different owners.

What locals & experts say

• The Infatuation (13 September 2022), Jake Missing, 8.2, on this address: "At the Harringay location of Umut 2000, you should be doing exactly what you do in their Dalston home, and that's ordering an ginormous platter of lamb ribs. Fresh from the ocakbasi, fat sizzling and meat perfectly pink and tender, these ribs are one of London's great go-tos. Best of all is that this restaurant is much roomier than its Dalston counterpart." ref
• The New York Times, T Magazine (16 September 2025), T25, number 11 of the 25 essential dishes in London, chosen by a panel of Adejoke Bakare, Jeremy Lee, James Lowe, Max Rocha, Cynthia Shanmugalingam and Claire Ptak. The entry's reasoning: the ezme "is an afterthought at many other ocakbasi, showing up as a mushy, overworked paste sitting behind a plastic display. At Umut, the dish is made to order." The piece names both the Dalston and Harringay locations. ref
• Ben Curtis, head chef at Smoking Goat, on the DALSTON room (SL.Man, 3 November 2021): "Umut 2000 in Dalston was introduced to me by a few chefs at Smoking Goat. It's a Turkish ocakbasi restaurant and the grilled quail is the essence of open-fire cooking, belying its status as our favourite casual post-service meal." That is a whole kitchen's habit, and it is about the other site. ref
• Hot 4 U, the chef collective, also on the DALSTON room (Trippin, 11 April 2022): "Order the off-menu ox heart and thank me later... If we powered London on Umut lamb rib smoke, I guarantee we'd be much happier little city dwellers." Their cash-only warning applies to that address, not this one. ref

Good to know

• Where: 551 Green Lanes N8 0RL, on the Grand Parade stretch, Turnpike Lane or Harringay Green Lanes for the train.
• Timing: no hours are published on any reachable source and the venue has no working website. Green Lanes ocakbasi generally run late; check the restaurant's Instagram, @umut2000haringey, before a late plan.
• Booking: walk-in. The room is big enough that a group usually gets in, which is the whole reason to choose this branch over Dalston.
• Price: the cheapest band on this list.
• Hygiene: FSA rating 5, very good, from a Haringey inspection on 16 February 2026, with a clean sweep on all three component scores (record).
• Dietary: nothing published. This is a grill house and the menu is built on lamb.
• Sites: two restaurants share this name and they are separately owned as of September 2025. This row is 551 Green Lanes N8 0RL in Haringey. The other is 6 Crossway N16 8HX in Hackney, which the master list carries as Yeni Umut 2000 Dalston. Every chef recommendation this database holds for Umut 2000, and Time Out's 2017 review, describe the Dalston room.

Jeff's take (his words)

• Note: none. His saved-places export lists this row as "umut 2000 Harringay" with an empty Note. The master list's "Green Lanes ocakbasi save" was written by an earlier enrichment pass.

Verdict (Chef Jeff ladder)

should-visit — Six of London's working chefs picked the ezme here as one of the twenty-five essential dishes in the city, and the reason they gave is a technique judgment: at most ocakbasi the ezme is a mushy paste sitting behind plastic, and at Umut it is chopped to order, tomato and parsley and onion with pul biber, sumac and pomegranate molasses. That is the tell for a kitchen that has not gone slack. The rest is the fire. The Infatuation's Jake Missing scored this address 8.2 and called the lamb ribs one of London's great go-tos, fat sizzling, meat pink, straight off the coals, and he made the point that matters for a plan: the Harringay room is far bigger than the Dalston one, dark and built for a table of ten. Green Lanes ocakbasi is one of London's real live-fire traditions and this is a benchmark version of it, at the cheapest price band on the list, with a spotless February 2026 inspection. It holds at should-visit rather than higher because the ribs and the ezme are the reason to come and the room is a canteen, not a destination in itself.