Kinz Restaurant London Review: Lebanese Comfort and Notting Hill Grandeur

June 13, 2026

Kinz restaurant in London is one of those openings that feels made for Notting Hill. It has warmth, scale, and a clear point of view. Set at 50 Notting Hill Gate, the restaurant takes over a former 1930s Lloyds Bank building, originally designed by Sir Edward Maufe, and turns it into an all-day Lebanese brasserie with a deli, mezzanine seating, a wine room inside the old bank vault, and a private dining room upstairs. That is quite a setting. Thankfully, the food does not sound like an afterthought.

The restaurant comes from Jad Lahoud, Karim Lahoud and Rasha Khouri Bruzzo, with the name “Kinz” meaning “treasure” in Arabic. There is a nice emotional logic to that. The Lahoud brothers grew up in London around a strong Lebanese community, with chef parents whose food shaped the way they cook and eat today. Rasha Khouri Bruzzo, meanwhile, is also connected to Akub, one of London’s strongest modern Palestinian restaurants. So, Kinz arrives with more than pretty interiors. It has roots.

The room sounds dramatic, but not overly glossy. A triple-height dining room. A canopied cocktail bar. Photography of Lebanon across the space. Artisan ironwork, striped textiles and earthy colours. This is not trying to be a small neighbourhood café. It is bigger and more ambitious than that. But the best Lebanese restaurants always understand generosity, and Kinz seems built around that idea: a place for mezze, bread, grills, wine, family lunches and long tables.

Kinz Restaurant London Menu

The menu is all-day, but lunch and dinner are where Kinz becomes most interesting. Start with the classics. Hummus comes blended with tahini, with the option to add awarma or pine nuts. Moutabal brings smoky chargrilled aubergine with tahini. Then there is samke harra, cod fillets with chopped walnuts and tahini sauce, and pumpkin kibbeh, filled with spinach, onions, and walnuts. Simple, familiar, and still worth ordering.

There are sharper, more characterful dishes too. Kibbeh nayyeh is finely minced raw lamb with bulgur, onion, and fragrant spices, pointedly described on the menu as best enjoyed with a glass of Arak. That is the kind of detail that makes a menu feel personal. Lamb sfeeha, cheese rikakat , and spinach fatayer keep the table busy before the larger plates arrive.

The bigger dishes are properly comforting. Warak enab brings vine leaves and baby courgettes stuffed with fragrant rice and spiced lamb, served with lamb cutlets in a tangy lemon sauce. Shish barak offers tiny lamb-and-parsley dumplings in a warm garlic yogurt and coriander stew. Fattet aubergine layers baked aubergine, walnuts, onions, and pine nuts in tomato sauce, finished with yogurt and pitta crisps. It is the sort of dish that will probably disappear faster than expected.

For the grill, the mashawi section keeps things straightforward: halloumi, chicken taouk, kafta or lamb, served with salad and rice. The falafel sliders are a clever modern touch, while the Sunday molokhiye, slow-simmered jute mallow with chicken, rice, pitta crisps, and mignonette sauce, feels like the dish regulars will come back for.

Kinz does not treat Lebanese food as a trend. It treats it as a memory, a comfort, and an occasion. Go with people who like to share. Order too much bread. Stay for the wine vault.