Soup not war
Georgian Chikhirtma Meets Moroccan Harira: A Second Sitting
There is a saying I may have invented: the pot does not ask for your passport. It asks only that you sit down and wait. Waiting is the whole discipline, gents. The soup knows this. We are still learning.
I came to this pairing by accident, which is how the best pairings arrive. A Georgian supper club running out of a railway arch in Bermondsey, one Wednesday in November. The host, a woman named Nino, had agreed to share her kitchen for the afternoon with a Moroccan pop-up called Bab Zine, two young brothers from Salé who travel London on a rotating schedule. Neither kitchen knew I was coming to score them. I prefer it that way. The soup speaks honestly when no one is performing for the critic.
Nino's chikhirtma arrived first. Chicken, egg-yolk enriched, lemon-soured, with a thread of saffron that turned the broth the colour of late afternoon. This is a soup that asks something of you. It doesn't rush. The acidity builds slowly, the way a good argument builds, patient and reasonable, until you find yourself agreeing before you understood the terms. I have written about chikhirtma before on this site and I will write about it again because it is not finished teaching me.
The harira from Bab Zine came ten minutes later. Tomato base, chickpeas, lentils, a finish of lemon and fresh coriander, a dusting of cinnamon that most Western palates mistake for a quirk and which is in fact the whole point. Christianity is an Eastern religion that forgot its address, and so is Western cooking. The cinnamon in that harira is a straight line back to a shared kitchen neither Nino nor the brothers from Salé have ever needed to argue about. They are already in it. We the audience are catching up.
I sat with both bowls for a long time. I did not rank them. That is not what this table is for.
What I will say is this. Chikhirtma is a soup of restraint. It achieves its depth by withholding, by the egg yolk held just below boiling, by the saffron used sparingly enough that you wonder if its their. Harira achieves its depth by abundance, by the layering of spice and legume until the broth becomes its own argument for generosity. These are not opposing philosophies. They are the same philosophy approached from different doors. The pot at the center of the table does not care which door you came through.
The Bermondsey arch is unheated. I want to be honest about that. November through a railway arch in London is a commitment. Bring a layer. The soup will reward you. The company of strangers sharing one table, two kitchens, no agenda, is its own form of practice. I have been saying for years that the mat is the argument. The table is also the argument. The bowl is the argument. Patience is what we are always practicing, mate.
The Rating #
Chikhirtma: 9 out of 10. Technically immaculate, emotionally precise, the saffron thread perfectly measured against the lemon's demand.
Harira: 9 out of 10. Generous, layered, the cinnamon doing exactly what it has always done, which is remind you that spice is not an accent but the main text.
Vendor #
Chikhirtma: Nino's Georgian supper club, Bermondsey railway arches, London SE1. No fixed schedule; follow her on Instagram for dates.
Harira: Bab Zine pop-up, the brothers from Salé. Rotating London locations; check their link-in-bio for the weekly calendar.
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