This is the first column in a new series exploring Chinese cuisine and culture across London, by the journalist and author, Fuchsia Dunlop.
In an unobtrusive spot a few paces from Walthamstow Central station, there’s a small restaurant offering dazzlingly authentic dishes from Xinjiang in northwest China. Etles, which opened in April 2017, is a rare London gem: a genuine mom-and-pop restaurant run by a skilled and enthusiastic cook. Chef-owners Mukaddes Yadikar and her husband Ablikim Rahman are Uyghurs: Turkic Muslims from Yili in the far west of Xinjiang, near China’s border with Kazakhstan. There are outposts of Uyghur cooking in Sydney and Istanbul, but it’s rare to meet Uyghurs in London: their UK population is no more than a couple of hundred (London has one other Uyghur restaurant: Dilara in Finsbury Park, which opened in July 2017).
Uyghur food is little known in Britain, but hugely popular in northern China for its sizzling, cumin-scented kebabs, crusty nan breads and hand-pulled noodles. Their culinary tradition is a bridge between China and Central Asia, a fascinating mix of dumplings and noodles similar to those found across northern China, with versions of pilav, samosas and kebabs that show the region’s westward leanings. Before Etles opened, it was impossible to find the real deal in London.
The vast region of Xinjiang occupies about a sixth of China’s territory, borders eight countries (including Mongolia, Tajikistan, and India) and has been a melting pot of cultures for more than two thousand years. Once, it lay at the heart of the Silk Road trading routes that connected China with Central Asia and Europe. These days, it’s still home to many ethnic groups. The Uyghur, who look Caucasian and speak a variant of Turkish, are the dominant minority.
Etles is named after Xinjiang’s famous Atlas (or Etles) silks, with their multi-coloured zigzag patterns: Mukaddes Yadikar usually dresses for work in Atlas silk dresses or bright Xinjiang tops that glitter with coloured beads. After leaving her hometown of Yili in 1998, she took a degree in Uyghur linguistics in Beijing before pursuing a Masters in Turkish linguistics at Istanbul University — but she always loved to cook.
“I started helping my mother in the kitchen from the age of seven,” she says, “and by the time I was at secondary school I could cook pretty much everything. In Xinjiang, Yili women are renowned for their kitchen skills: every Uyghur man wants an Yili wife!”
Local food in Yili, she says, is similar to that of the old oasis city of Kashgar (which is better known to foreign tourists who visit the region), except the Kazakh influence is stronger and Yili people can’t live without their morning pick-me-up of salted black tea with milk and kaymak. She met her husband, a graduate in petrochemical engineering, in Istanbul and later joined him in Manchester, where he was running a mobile phone shop.
In England, Yadikar, who speaks Uyghur, Mandarin Chinese, Turkish, and English, spent several years at home raising their three children before the couple moved to London so she could fulfil her dream of opening a genuine Uyghur restaurant. “We chose London because there are so many Chinese people here, and they love Uyghur food,” she says.
Eighty percent of her customers are Chinese, many of whom cross London to eat here. She taught her husband to cook her food: He now takes charge of stir-fried dishes while she handles the dumplings and noodles. She’s currently looking to purchase a tandoor oven for the yard in the back so she can make nan bread the traditional way. Yadikar’s enthusiasm for cooking is palpable: on one recent afternoon, she spent her time off making öpke hesip, a stuffed lung and sausage speciality that may never before have been attempted in London.
The Etles menu is short but features some of the greatest hits of Uyghur cooking, including a magnificent version of ‘big plate chicken’ and gorgeous hand-made noodles and a particularly lovely ququre (wonton) soup. Most of the food tastes exactly as it does in Xinjiang.
There is another, more extensive menu that has frustratingly been left on the shelf, but some regular customers seem to order from it anyway, which is why it’s worth keeping an eye on what’s going out under your nose to other tables. Some dishes run out as the night draws on. Muslim customers will welcome the fact that all the food is halal. The dining room is decorated with Atlas-silk patterned cloth, models of traditional musical instruments and the embroidered caps worn by many Uyghur men. Gilded Xinjiang-style teapots, cups, and saucers add another Central Asian touch. Service can be chaotic when the restaurant’s busy, but with food this delicious and cooked with so much heart, who cares?
What to order
The short menu includes some crowd-pleasing Chinese dishes such as Gong Bao chicken and Mapo tofu, but for those looking to eat Uyghur food, these are the highlights:
Da pan ji (‘big plate chicken’). A spicy chicken and potato stew served with broad hand-pulled noodles. Although most locals insist it’s a recent invention, Da pan ji has become one of the culinary signatures of Xinjiang, adored by Han Chinese and westerners alike. If a ‘big plate’ is too much, order the ‘medium plate chicken’ (zhong pan ji) instead.
Lagman (or läghmän) are hand-pulled noodles served with a separate bowlful of chunky meat and vegetable (or vegetarian, on request) sauce.
Chaomian (otherwise known as dingding somän) is a delectable stir-fry of short, cut lengths of noodle wokked with morsels of beef or lamb, celery, and tomato.
Tugur, a Uyghur relative of Chinese jiaozi, are boiled dumplings stuffed with lamb and onion.
Ququre (or chöchürä) provides an intriguing link between tortellini and Chinese wontons. These slippery lamb dumplings are served in a delicious broth with onion and reddened by chopped tomato, chilli, and a good kick of pepper.
Uyghur Polo is a wedding dish, traditionally eaten by hand: A glistening pile of rice studded with carrot and sultanas (Xinjiang is famous for its fruit) and topped with pieces of lamb.
Uyghur sis kebab is a succulent lamb kebab scented with cumin and chilli.
The following dishes are not on the regular menu, but may be on offer: look at what’s being sent to Chinese tables.
Pitir manta are steamed dumplings filled with lamb and onion — an Uyghur version of the Chinese xiaolongbao. Like many dishes on the menu, these taste exactly as they do in Xinjiang. Their name, manta, is a link in a linguistic chain that runs from Korean mandu dumplings, through Chinese mantou buns, all the way to Turkish manti dumplings on the Mediterranean coast.
Uyghur samosa, otherwise known as samsa, is the Uyghur answer to the Cornish pasty: golden parcels of dough stuffed with juicy lamb, onion and spices that are traditionally baked in a tandoor oven.
Bookings for Etles can be made by DMing the restaurant on Instagram or by calling 0203 620 6978.