AGORA

Fire before the pass settles

A skewer hits the charcoal before the flatbread leaves the wood oven; Haikal Johari, chef at AGORA in Borough Market, London, works inside that interval. The room sits at 2-4 Bedale Street, below sister restaurant OMA, with the market close enough that the cooking reads as a form of trade rather than theatre. Johari’s line reaches through Singapore, Bangkok, and London, with fine dining as the discipline that has followed him from one kitchen to the next. At Alma by Juan Amador in Singapore, he held executive chef responsibility; in 2020, that role marked a clear point in a career built on authority, rhythm, and control.

AGORA asks for a different register from a formal dining room, but not a lighter hand. Its language is Greek-inspired, built around souvla, dips, salads, braises, flatbreads, and meat cooked over fire. Johari’s known frame, European cuisine shaped by an Asian sensibility, meets a kitchen where the visible work is direct: heat, dough, smoke, fat, acid, salt. The station rewards composure. A skewer gives little cover for hesitation.

The two-meter souvla

The central piece of the program is a two-meter charcoal rotisserie, seen through hatches on Bedale Street and felt in the pace of the room. Chicken thigh skewers, pork souvlaki, lamb, and rotisserie meats carry the menu’s weight, with wood-oven flatbreads working as both plate and tool. The bread matters. Wildfarmed flatbreads are described here as puffed and charred, made to take spicy feta, tahini with red zhoug, chard borani, hummus, or the juices from grilled meat without collapsing into softness.

The architecture is small plates, but the method is not small. Pork arrives as souvlaki or rotisserie meat, lifted by parsley-garlic dip; chicken thigh takes its point from the skin and the heat beneath it. Spicy feta brings roasted pepper and pickled chilli into the spread section. Greek salad is cut with galomizithra and carob rusks. The wine program stays curated and Greek-leaning, with white wine, beer, cocktails, and frozen drinks moving around the same food rather than pulling attention from it.

A market room under low light

The room keeps its industrial bones visible: concrete floors, low light, open cooking, music, and a counter energy that belongs to Borough Market at service. The pass sits in public view, and the work has to hold under that gaze. Staff move between the grill, the oven, and the room, carrying flatbreads and skewers through a space that is busy by design. It is not a hushed restaurant. The noise belongs to the method.

AGORA’s Michelin Bib Gourmand belongs to this address, and it suits the place because the recognition is tied to cooking that stays close to its materials. The hand at the fire turns chicken thigh, the baker watches dough rise against wood heat, and the pass sends spicy feta and pork souvlaki into the Borough Market room.