Seeking reasons to be cheerful, one that occurs is that chain restaurants no longer feel the need to be based on burgers, pizza, pasta or cod French café. Instead, in an echo of the alleged mission of the BBC, they can exist in order to “inform, educate and entertain”.

Shahrokh and Zehra Parvin, the husband and wife team behind the five-strong Del’Aziz group, are rarely mentioned in print without the comment that their restaurants are “the realisation of a dream”. It is fitting that the newest Del’Aziz is located in Bermondsey Square — home to the Friday Antiques Market — where its recent redevelopment was undertaken as part of a “holistic, economic, social, environmental and physical intervention delivered by Igloo Regeneration in partnership with Southwark council, the LDA and the local community”. Apartments, offices, an art-house cinema, a supermarket and hotel is the reality of this version of social engineering, and if nothing else it delivered a lively clientele — although perhaps not the “urban safarians” targeted by Igloo — last Thursday for the colourful deli, bakery, bar, shop and restaurant that comprise the Del’Aziz corner site.

The cooking of the Maghreb and the Eastern Mediterranean informs the long menu, with cold mezze, hot mezze, grills and slow cooking.

Falafel and tabbouleh were puny examples of the genre but what they called sahanaki — tiger prawns in a feta and tomato sauce — was excellent. It would have been even better had the assortment of flat breads offered been warm instead of stone cold.

Persian chicken kebab with saffron and tagine of chicken — sensibly sporting only legs and thighs — with preserved lemon and olives were carefully prepared and both delivered on flavour.

Disappointingly, the majority of the customers seemed to have chosen from the list entitled The Burgers. But Rome, or indeed Beirut or Bermondsey, wasn’t built in a day.