Company Performance Metrics
- Cemal Polat: Founder
215 Hackney is a local casual cafe/restaurant created by two best friends from Hackney, Ali + Cemal (both from the Mesopotamia region of the Middle East which is known as the modern-day Kurdistan) have lived in Hackney N16 for over 28 years and continue to live there, being best friends from the age of 6 both decided to quit their jobs and
pursue a career in business. Ali + Cemal studied together at Tyssen Primary School @Oldhill Street and then moved onto study at Stoke Newington Secondary School @Church Street. Both Ali + Cemal has great love for the area which they’ve created amazing memories in. As a result, they decided to open their 4th café in their local area serving Middle Eastern dishes. The menu is created by our head chef Erdal Atas from Diyarbakir eastern Turkey, a culinary artist with vast knowledge of the Middle Eastern region which has travelled and worked in the region for many years. Our second head chef Mr Furkan Hakyemez has experience from top restaurants in Istanbul and Middle East, he has graduated from Le Cordon Bleu and has his heart set on creating vibrant dishes by mixing fine dining methods with street food tastes.
The breakfast + brunch menu celebrates the cuisines from the Middle East region with influence from Tel Aviv’s Street food to Syrian delicacies to Palestinian comfort food and of course with an East London touch. Our food is a celebration of what is beautiful of the region from the colors and the flavors, born in beautiful Mesopotamia we want to bring people around a table with the beautiful colors and flavors of each country and different region. It’s our way of bringing the Middle East to you on a plate.
We have a strong emphasis on using independent local suppliers to contribute to the amazing local businesses which have inspired us to invest in the area. Our Merguez sausages is hand made from Meat N16 on Church Street, our Vegetable + Fruits supplier is two doors down to us, our Coffee is supplied by Allpress which is based in Dalston, our Salmon is from the Fishmongers on Stoke Newington High Street sourced from Billingsgate fish market. This is our way of contributing to the local economy and supporting our Neighbours.
We also encourage customer to bring their own cups for take away coffee to reduce one off use take away cups, we sell BYOC (Bring Your Own Cup) with a 20p discount to encourage less dependence on single use coffee cups, even though we use 100% biodegradable TA coffee cups we still believe there is much to do to reduce our carbon footprint.