14 Apr 2025
It’s all Greek to James Cameron as he heads to the Fleetville family favourite..
I’m not sure a whole city made of Souvlaki would be architecturally sound. Would the pitta and chips be enough to support multiple-storey buildings or heavy vehicular traffic, and also wouldn’t it start to smell quite quickly?
Still, if you were there in the first heady days it would be absolutely delicious, especially if they were made by neighbourhood legend Souvlaki City in Fleetville.
They have been going since 2019, which practically makes them elder statemen of the fast moving St Albans culinary world, and in that time they have become firm family favourites of ours. They have also undeniably embedded themselves in the local community, and their ‘Hero of Hertfordshire’ and ‘Mayor’s Pride’ awards were proudly on display.
You receive a lovely welcome when you go through the door, but more importantly than all of this you receive absolutely first-rate Greek food.
The menus are contained in striking black vinyl, but what’s inside can seem at first slightly overwhelming. There are many starters, wraps that can be made as plates or as skepasti pitta club (which sounds like a club I would like to be a member of) and slightly off-topic tortilla wraps before you even get to the standard main menu. To wrap it all up there is a good value set menu.
Vegan and vegetarian options are not marked, but there are plenty of them if you know where to look. To drink there is a good range of wines, including retsina, as well as Greek beers which come served in a delightfully chilled glass.
We decided to share a range of starters, though still not making a dent on the full list. Hummus is of course a must, and was creamy but maintaining a bite, served with warm crisp bread.
The sausage was almost hot-dog like in texture, and came with a pot of mustard, but had a superb rich aftertaste.
The calamari was crisp and light, and transported you in an instant to the bright Aegean sea, or possibly Bournemouth.
My favourite of the starters was the Feta Saganaki, basically a whole block of feta deep-fried with sesame seeds and drizzled with honey. It is so rich and creamy, I made the mistake of tackling it on my own once and suffered for it, but this time I found someone to share the load. Not to say I didn’t want to eat the whole thing myself, but I wasn’t able to and that’s the important thing.
Gigantes were very large beans (as the name suggests), and were served in a lovely sweet and smokey sauce, but the beans themselves had a great texture, creamy and with deep flavour.
They looked down on your standard baked beans like the Gods of Mount Olympus gazing down on foolish and misguided mortals.
Finally, Dolomades had a great sharp citrus flavour, but the filling wasn’t quite firm enough to hold its shape, whilst the vine leaves that encircled it were a little bit tough.
We all went for wraps to finish, as that is literally the name of the game, choosing (in order) lamb, beef meatballs filled with feta, falafel and vegetables. The wraps held up under their heavy loads of deliciousness admirably, being robust enough to not fall apart whilst also tasty in their own right, and who amongst us can claim that.
The chips that also managed to squeeze their way in were fantastic, well seasoned and crisp.
There were also raw onions hiding out, which can be an issue to some but didn’t matter to me as I had double mint.
I could have done with a bit more sauce, there was some yoghurt but not enough to prevent dryness, however when I voiced this opinion I was roundly shouted down by the rest of the table.
The bill, which came in a neat snappy little box, was £116.36 for four with drinks, very reasonable considering the quality and quantity of food presented to us.
Souvlaki City is the sort of neighbourhood restaurant you really want to cling on to.
There are many places in St Albans that you can get a kebab, but few indeed that would serve you such a good kebab in such a friendly and all-embracing way, and with a big block of deep-fried cheese on the side.
