Borough Market seems to be having a moment. Upstairs at OMA, above its lively sister restaurant Agora, a discreet stairway leads to a calm, light-filled room. Huge glass windows frame views over the market’s Victorian ironwork on one side and the busy street below on the other. The space is elegantly restrained — stone and eucalyptus tones, clean lines, wood floors and gentle lighting — serene and considered, but never stiff.
OMA’s menu is divided simply: bread, spreads, crudo, clay pot and grill. What follows is food of remarkable precision and confidence. Cubes of raw tuna melt on the tongue like butter; seabass crudo, lifted with grilled chilli, sings with freshness. A quartet of dips — aubergine, tahini, salt cod and tarama — scooped up with Wildfarmed laffa bread, sets the tone: ingredients made to taste like the best version of themselves. The oxtail, slow-cooked and sticky, is quietly magnificent; the rice pudding with fig leaf borders on the divine. Service is exemplary: my waiter, only weeks into the job, knew the menu intimately but never over-explained. Behind the counter, a wood fire blazes as a chef dismantles a tuna head with unhurried calm.
Downstairs, Agora is OMA’s sociable foil — a more industrial, open space spilling into the market, with a charcoal rotisserie at its heart. Flatbreads, meze and spit-roast meats deliver hits of smoky, sunlit flavour.
Together, the pair offer everything one could want from modern dining: sophistication above, exuberance below. David Carter, the restaurateur behind Smokestak and Manteca, has outdone himself.
Oma and Agora, 2 – 4 bedale street, SE1 9AL, London
Dining and Cooking