Brother Marcus has always known how to host. Now, as of September, the team adds a touch of seclusion to their hospitality with the unveiling of Kamara. Tucked behind a discreet entrance on Greek Street – one you’d miss if not for the bouncer – Kamara floats above the vibrancy of Soho like a well-kept secret.
The bar is the latest venture from the Brother Marcus founders in collaboration with Angelos Bafas, bringing the East Mediterranean to Soho with low-lit intimacy and sculptural serenity. Evoking the cave-like vaults and warm tones of the Eastern Med coast, the space is softened by textured walls and handmade ceramics from independent Cretan potters – no detail left unloved.
Kamara’s drinks are composed with love and respect. Each cocktail incorporates house-macerated spirits and homemade ferments, carefully layered to highlight both complexity and balance. The team works with local ingredients, preserved for year-round use – think Yorkshire lemon verbena, Norfolk-grown shiso, and wild chamomile – folding them into Mediterranean flavour profiles with precision and flair. It’s a meeting of two terroirs: local craft and Eastern warmth. The Kitron Margarita is bright with citrus blossom and wild gooseberries; the Pickled Smash snaps with shiso and pickled cucumber; the Whey Sour offers a dreamy mix of berries, rum, and woodruff-laced whey; while the Yoghurt Cosmo, or “Yosmo”, brings homemade blackberry spirit and Greek yoghurt into unexpected harmony.
While each sip carries you beyond the bar’s walls, the mezze menu drifts up from Brother Marcus below. Dishes are made to share and linger over: toasted fluffy pita with za’atar, creamy cod’s roe taramasalata topped with sumac onions, grilled kofte with aubergine begendi, and deeply savoury Greek feta sausage with bayildi and labneh.
Whether you start with smoky kofte and oil-drenched pita or slip straight upstairs for a Pickled Smash, Kamara fits into the night however you need it to. There’s a rhythm between the restaurant and the bar – one feeds the other, literally and otherwise. It’s not about formality or fuss. It’s just Soho, done with a bit more soul.
