The best restaurants in Soho, from Kiln to Andrew Edmunds and the Devonshire
If the Square Mile of the City is where London goes to work, then the square mile of Soho is where Londoners come out to play. The West End area, now bounded by Oxford and Regent Streets, Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road, was developed from farmland into a park by Henry VIII in 1536. The now mainly Georgian and Victorian streets have been colonised by every creed and class of Londoner ever since, from the aristocracy who moved into Soho Square in the 1680s to the Greeks and gays, writers and gangsters of the 20th century.
The name itself comes from a hunting cry, though these days Soho is fertile ground for entertainment, whether cinema, theatre (see our guide to pre-theatre restaurants here) or the handful of sex clubs that are a reminder of Soho’s seedy past. Most of all, Soho is London’s preeminent dining destination.
Every generation seems to mourn that Soho isn’t what it was. Certainly the Soho of the 21st century is far more sanitised than the vice squad of the Sixties would recognise, but it hasn’t become the Disneyfied London of Covent Garden quite yet, and the recent arrival of the likes of Mountain and the Devonshire prove that Soho is where the capital’s most ambitious chefs and restaurateurs still want to set up shop.
With a restaurant entrance in seemingly every doorway of the main thoroughfares of Greek, Frith, Dean, Wardour, Berwick and Poland Streets (remember the east-west mnemonic: Going For Dinner With Billie Piper), it can be hard to know where to choose to eat. So from modern British to vegan French, northern Thai to southern Italian, here’s our edit of the best restaurants in London’s Soho. Given we haven’t crossed the threshold of Shaftsbury Avenue, a few big-hitters — Speedboat Bar, the Palomar, Evelyn's Table — haven’t made it in, on the grounds we’d consider them to be in Chinatown. But look — you won’t go hungry.
Andrew Edmunds
Andrew Edmunds the man died in 2022, but his name enjoys a glorious afterlife at the restaurant he founded in 1985 which, prices aside, remains heroically marooned in a Soho long lunch from the mid Eighties. But while, at that time, one’s fellow diners are likely to be ad execs and media types lamenting the long-lost glory days of expense accounts and no-one watching the clock, come suppertime the place is wall-to-wall romance, thanks largely to the compact dimensions of the candlelit, white-clothed ground-floor which enforces intimacy whether wanted or not, and the low lighting of the marginally more spacious, dark-green downstairs. (Actually, that’s not entirely true: lunchtime is also great for romance of the illicit, love-in-the-afternoon kind.) Either way, the food is judiciously prepared, simple modern British — cold roast pigeon with pickled ginger, mackerel with horseradish crème fraîche, buttery Dover sole and garlicky lamb neck — while the famously good-value wine list excels in bottles that sound all the more seductive whispered with the correct French pronunciation. Excellent service, too.
46 Lexington Street, W1F 0LP, andrewedmunds.com
Rita’s
Missy Flynn and Gabriel Pryce have been around the. Window counters provide a ringside seat for the Soho street scene, there’s a pocket handkerchief of a courtyard for when it’s warm enough to sit outside, and mood music courtesy of candlelight and a funky soundtrack. Pryce’s American-accented cooking has evolved from sarnies and fried chicken to something more urbane that one might encounter on a cool corner in Brooklyn, based on native meat and fish raised and caught sustainably paired with organic Home Counties produce and a wine list curated by Flynn that leans into low-and-no intervention. Dorset clams with árbol chilli and tequila butter might be followed by braised lamb with turnips and collard greens. The cocktails are as excellent as ever, not least the mini martinis that deliver a thimbleful of gin, vermouth and lemon oil for £7.50 ().
