Gulen Ocakbasi

Gulen Ocakbasi is one of the longest-established and best-known Turkish dining rooms in south-east London, on Bellegrove Road in central Welling. The business started life on Welling High Street in 2002 as a small takeaway kebab shop and has grown over more than two decades into a full ocakbasi grill house with an open charcoal pit at the back of the dining room — the ocakbasi format where lamb, kofte and chicken shish are skewered and cooked over coals in front of the guests. The restaurant has been consistently ranked among the top five Welling restaurants on Tripadvisor for over a decade, which is rare for a Turkish-grill operation of this size.

The menu runs the full Turkish-grill list — adana and urfa kebabs, lamb beyti, mixed-grill platters, shish and kofte, lahmacun and pide breads, a meze counter of hummus, ezme, cacik and stuffed vine leaves — with a separate vegetarian board. The dining room has a covered terrace with retractable roof and full heating that runs through the year, and live belly-dancing nights run on selected Saturdays. Turkish shisha is offered on the terrace from Sunday evening through to weekends. Licensed; takeaway and delivery also available.