RIP London’s Most Entertaining Restaurant Twitter Account

Ferhat Dirik, who runs London’s most famous and outspoken restaurant Twitter account for Mangal 2, has announced that he will retire the duty, having been active on the social media platform since 2012.

In his penultimate tweet, which came as a shock not just to the restaurant community on Twitter, but to all of his almost 80,000 followers, he said: “Hi everyone. I’ll be deleting this account tomorrow. Don’t worry, the restaurant will still be exist. Thanks for all the love, hate, bots & RTs. My name is Ferhat Dirik. Reach me for writing projects via Dirik89@gmail.com. It’s been quite a journey. One last thing, Fuck Nando’s.”

Asked why he has decided to stop tweeting, he told Eater today: “I feel like I’ve achieved all I’ve wanted with it. It’s good to leave at the top (top of the Kebab twitter genre anyway)!” Though the account has been active since 2010, Dirik has been responsible only since 2012. “My sister used to run it and kept insisting I take over, which I begrudgingly did,” he said. The rest is history.

Dirik, who as well as satirising his life as the general manager of his family’s famous Dalston restaurant, has been vocal on issues of gentrification, hipsters, Deliveroo, Arsenal FC (who he reluctantly supports), and Nando’s — the fast food chicken chain which has a site across the road from his restaurant, which he has enjoyed semi-seriously trashing on a regular basis. Most recently, he was commended for his measured analysis following the controversial way in which Fanny’s Kebabs announced it was moving into north London to serve “posh kebabs.”

The tributes immediately poured in. Magpie and Pidgin co-owner, James Ramsden replied, “Worse than Brexit.” While meat and fish delivery legend, Marky Market said: “I’ll miss you; you got twitter. x.” Food writer, Daisy Meager was similarly saddened by the announcement: “truly a loss [broken heart emoji],” she said.

Although Dirik is relieving himself of the duty, his final tweet moved to confirm that the account would not be deleted. “Trust me to have a grammatical error in my exit tweet,” he said. “The account will remain open, but I will not use it, and I’ll delete the app. Consider its existence like a gallery into the soul of a kebab-seller who knew too much. Thanks for all your kind words. And please dine here x.”

RIP @Mangal2 by Ferhat Dirik.