Escorts in Edgware Road, W2: who is close, and how soon
Ten o'clock on a weeknight on the Edgware Road: charcoal smoke lifting off a grill behind a restaurant window, a waiter threading between tables with a tray of small bowls held high, three generations of one family starting on their second basket of bread, and a queue at a pastry counter for squares of kunafa still warm from the oven. Edgware Road escorts and the guests who book them come for exactly that, a long, generous table that nobody hurries, on a road where many kitchens are still busy when the rest of W2 has gone quiet. Nobody on the board lives here; the nearest three names live next door in Paddington, and the office reckons on roughly an hour from its confirmation to her knock, longer at rush hour, with every length and figure listed on the rates.
On the ground
Edgware Road in practice
Landmarks on the arrival slip
By postcode, never by nameW2 1JU, W1H 7DL, W1H 7BH, NW1 6JQ, W2 1EE.
Nearest stations
Walking timeEdgware Road, 1 minute. Marble Arch, 7 minutes. Paddington, 8 minutes.
Getting there
W2Travel is included across Zones 1 and 2, and counted from the moment the hour is set rather than from when she leaves.
On the board
Nearest prints to Edgware Road
Who works here
On the board in Edgware Road
The eight prints above are a first shortlist for Edgware Road tonight. Any of the twenty eight on the who is free page can be asked for by name instead.
Note 02
How a mezze table works
The Lebanese restaurants that line the road between Marble Arch and the Marylebone flyover serve food in a set order, and it helps to know it. First come the cold mezze: hummus, moutabal of smoked aubergine, tabbouleh thick with parsley, fattoush with its shards of toasted bread, vine leaves, labneh. Then the hot ones: falafel, kibbeh, grilled halloumi, little sausages of sujuk, cheese pastries. Flatbread arrives throughout and does the work of cutlery.
Only then the grills, straight off the charcoal: chicken shish taouk with its sharp garlic sauce, minced lamb kafta, lamb chops. Order six or eight mezze for two rather than a main course each, share everything, and let the cloth fill up slowly. For escorts in Edgware Road and their guests it is the easiest format there is for a first evening, because passing plates gives both of you something to do with your hands and something to talk about besides yourselves.
Where alcohol is served, the old companion to mezze is arak, an anise spirit that clouds white the moment water and ice go in. Plenty of kitchens on the road serve none at all, and then the meal runs on fresh lemonade with mint, coffee scented with cardamom, or a pot of tea. Much of the cold side of the table is vegetarian by nature, so a guest who eats no meat loses almost nothing.
Note 03
After ten: spits, grills and fruit
Later on the road shifts gear. Shawarma turns on vertical spits in the windows, carved to order into warm bread with pickles and garlic; grill counters keep their charcoal glowing; and the juice bars build tall glasses of fruit, among them the layered avocado and fruit cocktail that Beirut is fond of, eaten with a spoon rather than drunk.
Around the Lebanese rooms sit other kitchens of the region, Persian among them, with saffron rice under skewers of lamb and chicken. This is the stretch of London where a late supper feels like a proper dinner rather than a compromise, and the pavement stays lit and peopled enough that a walk between courses, or between restaurants, is part of the pleasure.
Note 04
Off the main road
Step sideways and the scale drops. On the Marylebone side, Seymour Place and the small streets around it hold neighbourhood restaurants and pubs where a table for two is quieter than anything on the main road, useful for an evening that wants conversation more than theatre.
Back on the main road, the rooms vary more than the menus do. Some are large, bright and formal, with white cloths, long tables celebrating something and a menu that runs to dozens of mezze; others are narrow places with a grill at the front and a few tables behind it. The first kind suits a guest who wants the evening to feel like an occasion, the second one who mainly wants to talk. The food is much the same in both, and neither asks anyone to dress up.
North of the flyover, Church Street runs off the Edgware Road with a street market of fruit, vegetables and household stalls by day, and along it Alfies Antique Market fills a former department store with dealers on several floors. It is a daytime detour rather than an evening one, but a guest in W2 for a few days will find the stalls a livelier lunch than any hotel dining room, and a good excuse for a second meeting.
Note 05
Something sweet, and the walk back
The meal often ends at a counter rather than a table. Pastry shops along the road sell baklava by weight, ma'amoul filled with dates or pistachio, and kunafa, shredded pastry baked over sweet cheese and soaked in syrup, cut hot from a wide round tray. A small box of mixed pieces and two coffees is the traditional last course here, and it travels well to a hotel room. Coffee here is often the Arabic kind, pale and fragrant with cardamom, poured into small cups without handles, and one cup is rarely the end of it.
From there the road leads south to Marble Arch and the dark edge of the park along lit pavements, or back west into the quieter W2 streets. Northward, beyond the flyover, it runs on towards Maida Vale and the canal. Whichever way the evening points, who is free shows this week's names.
From The Roundup
Two notes worth reading for Edgware Road
Asked most often
Edgware Road, asked and answered
What should we order at a Lebanese table the first time?
Does every restaurant on the road serve wine?
Where can we find something sweet after dinner?
Is Church Street worth a detour?
One zone either way
Next along from Edgware Road
Last strip
Say a name and an hour
Write in with a length, a time and the zone you are staying in, and a name from the board comes back with a window attached. That is the whole of the arrangement.