IT felt a bit wrong going into Turkuaz’s dark interior at 8pm on a Tuesday evening after work when the sun was still blazing on one of the warmest days of the year so far.

Still, it was probably a better way of spending our time than watching England draw 0-0 with Slovenia.

And the interior was actually rather nice, once our eyes adjusted.

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The bar (Image: Sebastian Haw)

The Turkish restaurant is in the same building where Loch Fyne once was – a beautiful old timber-frame house on Jewry Street.

After a (very) long refurbishment, Turkuaz opened its doors to customers on December 22, and recently asked the Chronicle to come along for a review.

My dining companion and I sat down indoors – the internal courtyard was full – on one of the plush blue sofas that line the walls.

The interior of Turkuaz (Image: Sebastian Haw)

The menu had a good selection of gluten-free options and you can choose from a range of lighter tapas-style starters or some the meatier Turkish classics (or both in our case).

We ordered some Turkish wine to stay on topic – a first for both of us – the white Kavalklidere Cankaya from a vineyard near Ankara, which was distinctly quaffable.

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The service was smooth throughout and our waitress, Gila from Uzbekistan, was more than happy to answer all of our pedantic questions about the food.

Which brings us to the starters. We thought we would try the sauteed calf’s liver – a Turkish dish called Ciger Tava – and the scallops.

The scallops and Ciger Tava calf's liver (Image: Sebastian Haw)

These were the only dishes all evening which were a little disappointing. Gila told us the scallops were defrosted and the liver was a bit too chewy for our tastes.

After that, though, things got better and better. For our mains we went for the Ali Nazik, a kind of lamb meatball dish, and a mixed Izgara dish of grilled lamb and pork. Both came with sides of rice.

The Izgara was fantastic, the charcoal grill bringing out the full flavour of the meat and the spices in the Ali Nazik were not dulled down for the benefit of our mild British palates. The portions were generous too.

At this point we only had room for one dessert. The sweets menu mixes British and Turkish cuisine – we went for the pears poached in red wine with ice cream, which was divine.

Pears poached in red wine (Image: Sebastian Haw)

After that the irrepressibly hospitable Gila insisted we try some of the cocktails, to which we agreed, but only because I was working.

My martini was great and my company’s pomegranate gin fizz was just as good.

Around then we thought the evening was over, but no, apparently there was an interactive darts board upstairs we had to try.

We are both terrible at darts (and the cocktails had done their job by then) but that was no problem because the boards have a setting where you aim for a third of the board, a target even we could hit. Sometimes.