The best restaurants in Soho

Chef Meedu Saad has Egyptian heritage, and the restaurant’s name comes from the Chevrolet that he sat as a child while being driven around Ismailia, the port city where he spent his summers. At Impala, Saad reads north African cuisines through the adopted grammar of French and Thai kitchens. He wouldn’t be the first to filter a cuisine through Gallic techniques, but the latter, after seven years spent running nearby Kiln’s kitchen, is where it gets interesting. Mastering it is about controlling intensity, integrating funk and heat without pushing it over the edge, balancing smoke and freshness, and using bitterness to counteract umami. It’s a colossal, ambitious menu best tackled with a group of greedy pals. 

Old Soho looms large at Quo Vadis. This elegantly bohemian members’ club heaves with history, despite the fact that its public dining room received a thorough makeover not that lonb ago. Previously a dark and moody mystery, with the restaurant’s floorspace doubled, this once rather poky room is now wonderfully welcoming. Eat alongside glamorous wine-swilling pals and oyster-slurping folk who look like artists – even if they’re not – who feasting on congenial chef Jeremy Lee’s indulgent takes on classic British food. 

Head to the top floor of this old-school boozer to the teeny dining room, which is decked out with black-and-white pictures of salty old Soho geezers. The daily-changing menu – cooked up by Neil Borthwick (ex-head chef of The Merchant’s Tavern) – is crammed with seasonal French and British fare. It all tastes brilliant – gutsy, stripped back and practically cutting-edge.

Evoking the traditional feel of a Japanese udon-ya, this casual eatery wouldn’t be out of place in Tokyo. A blond-wood counter dominates the long narrow space (chefs on one side, diners on the other) but it still feels spacious and airy. And there’s now a diddy table out the front, too. Koya classics such as udon with mushrooms and walnut miso (kinoko) are available here, as is breakfast – try the ‘English breakfast’ udon: an earthy broth topped with fried egg, bacon and shiitake mushrooms.

In 2025, the Shaston Arms was picked up by the same team behind Barnes’ bucolic Waterman Arms gastropub. It quickly became home to Soho’s biggest vertical drinking squad as well as Soho’s smallest dining room. Bag one of the five tables sunk into a mahogany-lined moat against the back wall of the pub and enjoy an excellent menu that’s a little bit French, a little bit Spainish and a little bit Italian. Come for onion rings dolloped on a rich liver mousse, crispy little shallot fritters topped with a large wodge of sardine and smokey cod’s roe and flaky monkfish in a creamy tandoori sauce.

This is a place to see and be seen. Interiors-wise it’s all super-cosy with diner-style red leather booths, wood furnishings, a rustic Mexican tiled bar and even a much-coveted central London enclosed garden space out back. If you’re looking for a place to catch-up with pals in central London and want to watch the world go by with some superior snacks and a corker of a cocktail, then this is the place to be.

Osteria Vibrato is a riotous Italian restaurant with an old-school appeal that matches the studied vintage buzz of Trisha’s across the road and Bar Italia a few streets over. The waiter might just get up and play piano as you dig into your pasta, and this pre-Lizzy Line energy is surely down to the restaurant’s driving force, Charlie Mellor. A decade ago he opened Hackney Road’s Laughing Heart, a small plates wine bar named after a rousing Charles Bukowski poem, with a 2am licence and a deeply devious energy. Of course, Hackney is now overrun with small plates wine bars, so Charlie’s done the only thing he could; bring his uproarious brand of hospitality to Soho. 

Found within the Radha-Krishna Temple on Soho Street, Govinda’s restaurant serves up what they describe as karma-free food. Vegetarian and vegan dishes with an Indian lean are the speciality here, with thalis starting at £7.95. Plus there are at least ten salads on the menu each day – think mango, celery and walnut or fried, marinated courgette and aubergine. It’s all offered to Lord Krishna before it hits the plate, too, so you're getting a free slice of Krishna’s mercy for good measure.

Ye Ye’s on Wardour Street leans into a homely, slightly weathered charm – offering genuinely tasty, bang-for-your-buck Chinese food inside what was once historic Soho goth pub The Intrepid Fox. In this economy, beef short rib the size of Mjölnir is practically a myth, but for Ye Ye’s ‘Golden Supreme Beef Rib Noodle’ delivers. A generous slab of meat, it’s sweet, tender, and easily slides off the bone into a rich, slow-cooked broth, allowing the thick chewy noodles to soak up all its goodness. Try also the grilled, juicy crab and pork dumplings, lightly sprinkled with sesame seeds.

This boho-chic Persian joint, from the group behind Bao and Hoppers, may be small but it still packs a punch. Take a seat with views of the open kitchen and plump for one of the innovative grills. Our favourite is the poussin: its charred, blackened edges offset its chilli, red pepper, sumac and garlic marinade. Berenjak is vibrant and atmospheric, with eager-to-please staff, and a bill that won’t kill.

Most Londoners know about Forza Wine by now. This small plates Italian-ish restaurant is a dependable place to have a Good Time. It’s where you go to meet The Girls to share a bottle of natty orange and crispy cauliflower fritti. It’s the sort of place you could take a date, but your mum would also quite like. The cult resto has now arrived in Soho, launching its third outpost (alongside Peckham and the National Theatre), and it’s pulling in dates, catch-ups and groups of food-conscious friends meeting for a cheeky post-work Lambrusco. Check out the roomy outdoor terrace on a sunny day.

Gunpowder’s first restaurant opened in 2015 in Spitalfields and over a decade on, the Soho branch holds all the gravitas of its original location. The elegance of the moody, marble-accented restaurant establishes it immediately as a cut above. Come for the French bean pakora, Indo-Chinese prawn toast, and kale and buna aubergine with goat cheese, as well as incredible aloo chaat, kawari soft shell crab and miso cabbage skewers.

This tiny, 19th-century Soho institution prides itself on being London’s oldest French pâtisserie. Whether it’s still also ‘the best’ is neither here nor there: you drop by because it’s quaint and as far from corporate as can be, and because it’s an old and familiar friend. Surveying the memorabilia, peeling plaster and spangly swags of stuff while nibbling an almond croissant. Tea and coffee have no more caught up with modernity than the non-automated till; service is endearingly chaotic (asked if I’d like a coffee with my pastry, I was promptly presented with tea) but the cakes? Divine. 

A small ‘modern Filipino’ restaurant from the same group behind Kentish Town’s culty Panadera Bakery and Mamasons Dirty Ice Cream, Donia offer a brief but masterful menu of rousing, flavour-packed gastronomy. Think prawn and pork dumplings with white crab, thick-cut sea bream kinilaw, massive lobster ginataan with creamy coconut and pumpkin sauce and sensational lamb shoulder caldereta pie. 

In little over a decade the French pleasure palace that is Brasserie Zédel has become a London landmark. Long gone is Zedel’s famed two courses for under a tenner deal, but the prix fixe menu remains, it’s just a little more prix-y than before. That said, two courses for £16.95 (or three for £19.75) remains decent value for a zingy mound of dijon-drizzled carottes râpées followed by the house speciality of steak haché – another mound, this time of chopped steak with peppercorn sauce and perfect fries. Slam a creme brulee on the end and you’ve got yourself a fabulous three course dinner for under £20, a real rarity in Soho. 

The sequel to Thai barbecue joint Smoking Goat is a slam dunk. Sit up at the stainless-steel counter and watch the chefs stoke and tame the fires to produce authentic-tasting northern Thai dishes, baked in clay pots over the charcoal barbecue. It’s pure theatre for food lovers, and the dishes boast memorably intense flavours – from the dry spice rubs used on the fresher-than-fresh fish, to the lashings of ginger and spice in the beef-neck curry. 

This brick-and-mortar comes after a year long Khao Bird pop-up at Borough Market’s Globe Tavern. With a chrome open kitchen, exposed extractor fans, buzzing pink neon, and hunks of smashed plaster clinging onto the walls for dear life, the vibe is that of a brutal house reno in Hertfordshire. Yet Khao Bird’s intense cuisine is more than a match for such chaos. There's raw beef larb spicier than Casanova’s search history, fresh pomelo and prawn salad, and serious Burmese-inspired mutton fries, a non-negotiable order of chips so vast and melt-in-the-mouth, that it’s impossible not to let loose a sigh of pleasure when consuming them.

This light-filled Dean Street branch of Barrafina serves up excellent tapas from a high marble counter, from which you can watch chefs dole out dazzlers such as oozing tortillas and milk-fed lamb sweetbreads. Pick from a knockout list of Spanish wines and sherries to go with.

Northern Spain is so hot right now. This serene oasis inside the hectic Kingly Court food hall feels calm and sophisticated and offers all manner of sharing plates, with an emphasis on open fire grilling. Try sea bream crudo in a zingy mandarin dressing, cheese doughnuts stuffed with smokey cheddar and Alta’s ode to arroz meloso, a bed of umami rice and sweet crab meat.

This Sri Lankan stunner may have a chilled aesthetic, with its vintage/modern interiors and focus on street-food dishes. However, it’s from the team behind Gymkhana, Bao and Bubbledogs, so you can bet your bottom rupee that a slick experience awaits. The eponymous savoury pancakes are crisp and chewy in all the right places, the karis are full of flavour, and starters such as goat roti are unmissable.

The London spin-off of one of Istanbul’s most celebrated restaurants, Yeni is deliciously atmospheric – all high ceilings and pretty patterned tiling in the open kitchen – plus the food is excellent. Try the snow peas with apple mint and chilli, or the dessert of kadajifi (bread pudding) fritters. It’s quite pricy, so ask for a basket of bread to fill you up (it’s not on the menu, but staff happily gave us one).

Dating back to 1867, this French restaurant is said to be where King Edward VII wooed his mistress Lillie Langtry and over the years, the great (Oscar Wilde) and the good (Agatha Christie) and the absolutely despicable (Margaret Thatcher) have all dined here. It survived the Blitz, but not the 1980s, when it became a Pizza Express. It is now finally back to being a bistro, with souffle, steak frites and three course set menu for £29, which doesn’t seem crazy at all; especially when it includes their heady mousse au chocolat. After one of the prettiest dining rooms in London? Book a table here. 

The third branch of this pasta paradise is a two-floor, 80-seat smasher just off the south end of Carnaby Street. Padella’s classics are as dependable as ever. The pici cacio e pepe purrs, and its juicy mouthfuls of salt, pepper and butter remain one of the city’s great beige foodie wonders. It’s not just the pasta that remains high-calibre at Padella Soho. Antipasti features a cool plump of burrata with so-the-cliché-goes drinkable olive oil, plus stalks of asparagus with even more butter and pepper. The drinks and desserts lists are brief but well-curated: wine on tap and five classic cocktails created by Lyaness’ Mr Lyan. 

It’s usually a good idea not to question what goes into your burger, but it’s a different story at Heard on Foubert’s Place off Carnaby Street. This is super high quality fast-food made with British beef from regenerative farms. The house special - the Heard Burger - is indecently good, with two thin and lacy smashed patties and a pile of melted Ogleshield cheese mixed with just-spicy-enough jalapeño hot honey, chopped white onion, burger sauce and pickles. Buns are sloppy in the best possible way. Appealingly classy and not as spenny as you’d think. 

A huge space that gets bigger the deeper you delve, Moi is all about Japanese food made with primo British ingredients. Chefs whip up modern and traditional takes on sushi, skewers, tataki and sashimi in a kitchen so open that they might as well take their aprons off and join you at your table. Of course, with prices like this you’d expect great things, so to do it right you’ll need to accept its Mayfair-style pricing. 

One of those properly romantic Soho restaurant-wine bar hybrids, Ducksoup is pimped with candles, a few small tables along the wall and a bar that acts as a dining counter. The menu is seasonal and comprises quality European dishes. And there’s a truly lovely atmosphere.

Nopi’s chef-owner is Yotam Ottolenghi, who struck culinary gold with his game-changing Ottolenghi cafés. This is a more formal, more grown-up take on proceedings that shares the same look and ethos – right down to the inventive fusion of Middle Eastern cuisine with bold forays into the Mediterranean and Asia. As of April 2024, the talented Elaine Goad is head chef, intertwining her Filipino heritage with menu classics; expect the likes of rump cap with gochujang & coffee butter and runner beans with coconut brittle.

This branch of Middle Eastern small-plates restaurant Bubala (find the others in Shoreditch and King’s Cross) is the place to come for meat-free delights of every kind, from the expected houmous and falafel to more leftfield creations, like intensely charred, mango-marinaded leek kebabs. 

London loves Sichuanese food. The central Chinese cooking style, famous for its copious use of dried chillies, show-stopping red broths, pungent garlic and mouth-numbing peppercorns. Barshu, opened in 2006, was one of the first well-known spots to offer this singular cuisine to Londoners. Recently, the two-story Soho venue has enjoyed an invigorating glow up and zhuzhed its menu with a few new dishes. But it’s very much business as usual. And business at Barshu is good.

A cult Korean spot with immaculate fried chicken. This south London branch relocated from Walworth Road to Elephant Square at the end of 2024. There's also a branch in Soho with karaoke. 

Kumori is a classy place. It feels more like an expensive spa than a restaurant, but we’re quickly reminded it’s time for lunch rather than a facial as we’re handed a tick-box menu and a tiny pencil. Nominally a handroll bar (but there’s some torched nigiri and various sides, too), at Kumori you can opt for a set menu of three to five handrolls, or choose your own adventure with an a la carte option. Whatever you do, make sure you order what we’re boldly calling ‘the best of the handrolls’; spicy tuna wrapped in Kumori’s custom-made nori and placed on perfectly seasoned rice and laced with surprise crunchy bits.

Three-quarters of a century after opening its deli, Soho’s Lina Stores has launched this proper restaurant. Go hard on the pasta: al dente handrolled pici pasta noodles, gnudi ricotta and semolina dumplings, squid-ink spaghetti and agnolotti filled pasta. The best seats in the house are at the street-level counter, or head downstairs to the intimate trattoria-esque space. Small portions make this the ideal place to grab a quick bite before moving on.

Though based on Taiwanese street-food dishes, Bao’s kitchen really pushes those boundaries. The restaurant’s name derives from ‘gua bao’: fluffy white steamed buns, in this case filled with braised pork, sprinkled with peanut powder. Other sorts of bao are more slider-like. But buns are only half the story. Xiao chi (small eats) are given equal prominence, and the drinks list (well-matched beers, chilled foam tea, glorious peanut milk, and ten-year-aged oolong teas) is especially distinguished. 

Hearing the call of the crusteacean? Then there is really only one place in Soho that’ll suit. The Seafood Bar is all about icy (and massive) platters of fruits de mer, oysters, lobster and sustainable shrimps. An import from Amsterdam, it’s quickly made a home for itself on Dean Street - bringing in the crowds with daily-delivered fresh fish and a warm, welcoming energy and super friendly servers. 

As elegant as a Korean BBQ opposite the Coach and Horses on Greek Street can be. The grill, operated by buttons at the side of the table, is the star attraction here, cooking up curled wafers of beef brisket, a marinated blanket of short rib and, best of all, a prime slab of rib eye. Each piece of meat was seared, fussed over, trimmed, flipped and lovingly squished. Everything is served with its own punchy dipping sauce. Nothing disappoints.

Soho used to be full of places like this. Casually chaotic boltholes where you’d be plied with massive portions of perfectly serviceable food, before being booted back onto the street, very full, quite happy and a little bit pissed. In many ways, 27 Old Compton Street is a passport back to 1987. It’s walk-ins only and their thing is mega dishes of pasta that are never more than £14, with most hovering around the £11 mark.

The latest offering from genial Scotsman Stephen Lironi, 1980s popstar (Lironi and his wife Clare Grogan remain members of cult new wave band Altered Images) and music producer, who heads up a coterie of Spanish-inspired seafood restaurants which pride themselves on using only fish from Lironi’s homeland. Maresco is the third, and his debut central London spot following Crouch End’s Bar Esteban and Stoke Newington’s Escocesa.

Occupying prime Soho real estate since 1992, this fin de siècle-styled brasserie is an Old Compton Street legend (and comes under the Soho House umbrella, too). On a sunny day – and a grey one too, let’s be honest – the al fresco tables on the pavement get snapped up quick. Inside, you’ll find a pleasingly chaotic, all-day whirl of fabulous French plates, from oysters and charcuterie, to pâtés, escargots, and juicy steak tartare. The entrecôte steak is worth a visit alone, as is the atmosphere, which is never anything less than rambunctious. Importantly, it’s open until 3am on Fridays and Saturdays.  

What’s that you say? Resonably priced omakase? In central London? Sign us up. Perched on Soho’s most pervy street, this Brewer Street Japanese spot offers a seriously good set dinner menu for £74.80 (£51.80 at lunch). It’s still a lot of money. But you will be extremely hard pressed to find a better sushi experience in London for less than this. There is an la carte menu available at Sushi Kyu too, with a selection of maki rolls, chirashi don rice bowls, sashimi and nigiri, but the wallet-friendly omakase is what makes this place special, with red mullet sourced from France, blowtorched Korean turbot with caramelised lemon and spring onion, squid topped with Icelandic sea urchin and deft tuna nigiri. 

The buzz is as important as the food at Jacob Kenedy and Victor Hugo’s enduringly popular restaurant. Dine at the bar and you’re in for a fun time – especially if you sit by the window, where you can watch the occasional celeb swan into the dining room. The menu is a (slightly confusing) jumble of small and large plates celebrating the best of artisan regional Italian cooking – all supported by an enticing selection of cocktails and an impressive all-Italian wine list.

Now boasting two Michelin stars, When the then-twenty-something head chef Angelo Sato opened Humble Chicken in the bones of the original Barrafina in 2021, people were tripping over themselves to sing the praises of his cosy Soho yakitori joint. A couple of years down the line and Sato has shifted his own goalposts. He's now moved on from acclaimed and juicy Japanese chicken skewers to Humble Chicken 2.0 which offers an omakase of 18 immaculate east Asian-rooted dishes for £185. It spans snacks, oysters, dumplings, sashimi, and, of course, chicken. Impressive stuff. 

Mountain – the first Soho restaurant from Brat's Tomos Parry – boasts an expansive, industrial-chic dining room and Basque-ish food which is big on narrative. The sobrasada is made on an organic farm in Mallorca. Meat, sourced somewhere equally lovely, is butchered on-site downstairs. The butter has a backstory more compelling than the protagonists of most Netflix dramas. When it’s good it’s excellent and Parry is an exceptional talent; his cooking is all about rusticity, simplicity and heritage. It won its first Michelin star in 2024.

This is a Cantonese pub by way of Dubai; sleeker than Soho’s many carpeted boozers (the ever-enticing Blue Posts, opposite, for example) and swankier than the restaurants in nearby Chinatown. When it comes to the menu, it’s all about the classics. There’s crispy duck and pancakes, sesame prawn toast, and all the top chicken permutations; kung po, sweet and sour and chow mein. The Duck & Rice isn’t about deep Cantonese cuts, it’s about crowd pleasers done with a hearty flair in a room where sinking brimming pints of pilsner which come direct from steampunk-style copper tanks on site.

Pastaio on Ganton Street is like the Italian version of a large ramen joint, only serving pasta. The music is loud, there’s an open kitchen billowing steam and row upon row of communal tables. It’s all about the pasta, with lashings of butter and parmesan. Go for the carbonara made with bucatini (thick spaghetti) or the weekly-changing special of stuffed shapes.

Formerly known as Jugemu and home to the best prawn tempura hand roll in the city, this Winnett Street sushi joint is so humble you could walk past it and never realise it was there. When marking up the dishes you’d like on the paper menu, don’t hold back; as well as those hand rolls, there are street-food snacks, sushi and sashimi.

Darjeeling Express started out life as a supper club in lawyer-turned-chef Asma Khan’s Kensington home. The small plates draw on her Calcutta childhood: home-style food, cooked from family recipes. Much is made about the homeliness of the ethos – the kitchen is staffed by an all-women team, and a portion of the proceeds go towards promoting female equality in Darjeeling. 

This is a place where you get proper tapas-sized dishes, so you can really get stuck into the menu. Copita sidesteps the usual clichés in favour of less familiar ideas such as smoked anchovies with pork crackling – no wonder it’s popular with the post-work crowd and can get fairly cacophonous. Thankfully, service is always fast and friendly, making this a real find in the heart of Soho. 

Here’s a delightful distraction in the heart of Soho – a French fantasy complete with stripped furniture, objects d’art and a menu that’s as Gallic as ‘La Marseillaise’. Whether you fancy the oozing camembert or a mighty helping of braised lamb shoulder with anchovies and soubise sauce (made from onions), the cooking is all about fine ingredients and bourgeois sensibilities. And the outdoor seating du jour only adds to the overall effect.

A Japanese steakhouse that celebrates the elite cattle known as wagyu, the room is fittingly butch; black, glossy marble walls and tables hench enough to contain the ungodly amount of food set to descend upon them. There’s a downstairs room too, a kind of yakiniku grill-house take on a Berghain-style sex dungeon. But Kanpai Classic isn’t just about a serious slab of steak on your plate, this is a whole wagyu experience, with various cuts, all imported daily from Japan, grilled tableside by pros. 

Looking for a slice of New York chic? It’s Bagels has you covered. The sleekly-designed diner-style space is straight out of the Lower East Side, offering the closest you’ll get to stepping into a Tom Waits song this side of the Atlantic. It's open from early breakfast through to the afternoon, every day of the week, with a handful of stool and counter seats for you to smash you way through chewy bagels filled with everything from fried egg and cheese to tuna salad, lox (salmon for non-Yanks) and pastrami and salt beef. The best though is ‘the works’; lox, onion, capers, lemon and tomato.