The doner kebab was invented in 1975 in Great Titchfield St, Fitzrovia, just round the corner from the BT Tower. FACT! Ish…

Ok, the first doner kebab I ever ate was from Great Titchfield Street in 1975. Latterly known as ‘the first day of the rest of my life’, forever after divided into ‘pre-Efes’ and post-Efes’. My life changed on that day.

People will tell you otherwise. “Oh a doner kebab!” they’ll exclaim, “how horribly working class, how crude, the food of drunks at pub leaving time, oooooh, tacky”. Others will tell you how doners are a Turkish invention, or Lebanese, Arabic, Greek gyros writ wrong, many more won’t touch them on health grounds, on health&safety grounds or just because they’re smelly. People tell you how they ATCHERLEY SAW, WIV ME OWN EYEZZZZ!!!! this Turkish geezer out the back by the bins, killed a scavenging cat, skinned it and stuck it on the spit to make Doners wiv. Honest!

And let me say here and now that all of these quite ridiculous stories are probably true. Because you never know what you’re eating in a Doner. Which is a big part of the fun when you have 17 pints of stout inside you, a little less so when sober and hungry.

So how fortunate for me that I lost my kebab virginity at Efes. One of the first kebaberies in London and for the next 40 years and more, by a million miles the best. And the only place I would ever eat such a… a… delicacy? a… meal? a… thing.

My best mate moved to France in 1992. And every trip he made back, at least 5/6 times a year, he’d call/text/mail to arrange a meeting at Efes. For a Doner. Always take-away, always eaten in the car outside, always absolutely, mind-blowingly, taste-bud-explodingly, lip-smackingly, chilli-saucily magnificent. The Pig (I won’t use his real name to save him from embarrassment, but its Jeremy) would sometimes eat 2. And they were big. Really big.

About 3 years ago Efes changed hands. Jeremy went, obviously, and reported that Efes was officially dead. Horrible. Yeuch. And last night after a trip to Great Portland Street, going back to the station, I went for my usual back-street tour as I love the West Ends back streets as much as I hate Oxford Circus, Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus, I chanced onto Great Titchfield Street. And took this photo of Efes. I know, kebab shops are never about the decor, but this was definitely a few hod carriers short of the mark, even by their exacting-free standards of cleanliness and hygiene.

I might try and find a new place. Better get some serious inoculations and start the antibiotics now.

The end of an era. The Legend dies. Efes is gone.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx