There is a particular confidence required to bring the noise and warmth of Istanbul into the City of London — and Leydi, set within Hyde London City, carries it effortlessly. The space sets the tone before a single plate arrives: light, spacious, part of the hotel’s wider design language, yet entirely its own world once seated. It is a room that invites you to linger, which is precisely the point.
Under the direction of chef Selin Kiazim — the force behind the cult favourite Oklava — Leydi‘s menu is built on fire, generosity, and the long, sociable rhythm of Turkish dining. This is not a meal to rush. We started, as the menu insists you should, with meze for the table: a smoked aubergine dip, all soft char and garlic depth; a muhammara rich with sun-dried red pepper salça and walnuts; and atom, a fiery streak of garlic yoghurt loosened with urfa chilli oil. Together they made the case for ordering everything for the middle of the table and letting it disappear in stages.
The börek arrived next — crispy filo layered with sheep’s milk feta and leeks, finished with a thread of truffle honey. It is a dish that shouldn’t work as well as it does: savoury and sweet, brittle and soft, all at once. From the mangal, the shish köfte — lamb breast minced with onion, garlic, peppers and parsley — came with dripping pide, grilled ezme and marinated peppers, smoky and generous in the way the best Turkish grills always are.
We finished with künefe, the shredded kadayif pastry soaked in syrup and pulled apart at the table — a sweet, sticky, faintly theatrical end to a meal built entirely around sharing.
Beyond the evening menu, Leydi has just launched Leydi In The Window, a separate daytime concept running Monday to Friday, 7am–3pm, built around its own fresh, stone oven-baked börek and barista coffee. It is a smaller gesture than the main dining room, but no less considered — börek made fresh daily, filo baked crisp, fillings rooted in Istanbul’s streets, served with homemade dips. For the City’s breakfast rush or a lunchtime refuel, it brings Turkish comfort food culture to a part of London that rarely slows down.
Leydi succeeds because it refuses to compromise on either end of the day — as at home with a fast coffee stop as it is with a slow, fire-led evening built for sharing.
Leydi, 15 Old Bailey, London EC4M 7EF — within Hyde London City
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