Kiln Soho, the best Thai restaurant in London

When in Soho, there is this place that you should definitely try out!

First thing that comes up with you google this restaurant is:

Kiln Soho | Kiln Thai Grill, Seafood & Claypots.

That is what their website name says.

And that sounds bloody good already if you ask us!

Super 8 Restaurants

Kiln Soho is part of the Super 8 Restaurants group.

Super 8 was founded by directors Brian Hannon and Ben Chapman and it operates 4 London restaurants: Smoking Goat and Brat in Shoreditch, Brat at Climpson’s Arch (Hackney), and Kiln in London’s Soho.

Rumor has it a fifth restaurant is in the making in Soho that will be lead by Brat’s Michelin starred chef Tomos Parry serving similar Brat specialties and dishes.

What all the restaurants have in common is the use of top notch British produce and ingredients, and seasonal fruit and vegetables.

Kiln Soho

No wonder we had an almighty kick ass lunch here.

Since its opening in 2016, it has secured a top spot in one of London’s most popular neighbourhoods where there is no shortage of places to eat.

Kiln Soho was the winner of the 2018 National Restaurant Awards.

This tiny Thai restaurant originally started with Nick Molyviatis as head chef. In 2019 Meedu Saad, then senior sous chef of Smoking Goat, took over the reins and is still behind the woks today.

So what kind of cuisine can you expect here?

The menu at Kiln Soho is influenced and inspired by the cuisine of northern Thailand. So expect some bold flavours of the country’s north-eastern Isaan region.

Unexpected lunch

Truth be told, we coincidentally stumbled upon Kiln Soho one day.

We had read about this amazing Thai restaurant serving the most mind-blowing dishes. However we weren’t planning on visiting the Soho area during our last London visit.

We did put Michelin star restaurant Brat on our list though, not knowing that they were part of the same restaurant group.

Not really sure how we ended up in Soho that day, but we did.

It is around noon, we walk past this packed little place and think: this looks like a cool place.

To our surprise it says Kiln on the facade, and we waste no time.

We push the door open and even though the bar around the kitchen area is packed, there still is one last table for 2 in the basement for us.

The menu

The waitress brings the menus, glasses and a bottle of free tap water. She quickly explains the dishes a little and gives us some time to make our choice.

We love the sound of the dishes.

One thing is for sure: don’t expect traditional Thai classics such as tom ka kai or satay chicken and peanut sauce.

All these dishes come from northern Thailand where the borders are with Myanmar, Laos and Yunnan.

And that just happens to be our most favorite type of Thai cuisine!

What dishes did we pick?

Well, which ones would you go for?

They all sound so good, we would literally order just each and every single dish on the menu!

But let’s not overdo things, tonight we have a Singaporean soft shell crab dinner booked at our hotel‘s restaurant.

We make our choice and order the sour curry of mussels with courgette (£9,80), fried curry of monkfish and its liver (£10,50), ox heart laap with makwaen (£8,30), northern style laap sausage (£5,50) and claypot baked glass noodles with Tamworth belly and brown crab meat (£7,75).

And if that is not enough, we can always order extra dishes afterwards.

We mention that we want to share the dishes, and the waitress promptly brings us 2 extra plates.

Sour curry of mussels with courgette

The dishes here are brought to your table as soon as they are ready.

Not all in one go, and we like that.

So the first dish that we get is the sour curry of mussels with courgette.

Reading that out loud already made our taste buds tingle and rightfully so.

In this bowl are 6 plump and fatty very flavourful mussels, swimming in a gorgeous looking broth. It is zippy, refreshing, the perfect balance between salty, sweet and spicy.

The raw slices of courgette on top give this dish a lovely crunchy texture.

That is a lovely bowl of curry mussels like you have never seen let alone tasted before.

Fried curry of monkfish and its liver

The second plate that comes to our table is the fish curry.

Fried curry of monkfish and its liver, we just had to try that.

The waitress also brings us a bowl of brown jasmin rice that comes with the curry she says.

The 2 large chunks of monkfish are succulent, cooked perfectly.

And then what say about that curry sauce?

It is thick and rich and nicely oily and rustic, hard to put a finger on how it really tastes.

This is good.

Ox heart laap with makwaen

By the way, we also ordered a Freedom lager (£5), which goes extremely well with this kind of food.

Next up is the ox heart laap with makwaen.

Makwaen is a wild pepper variety that only grows in northern Thailand. It is closely related to Chinese Szechuan pepper and Japanese sancho pepper.

Laap (often spelled larb, means chopped) is one of our all time favourite Thai dishes.

It is a chopped meat salad with fresh herbs, shallots and lime or lemon that is served cold. Usually meats such as ground pork, chicken or duck are used.

Here at Kiln Soho the laap consists of chopped ox heart, which immediately peaks our interest. It comes in a bowl topped off with sliced shallots, lemongrass and fresh herbs.

Stir it all nicely to incorporate all the chopped components and that lemony spice marinade at the bottom.

It is crunchy, fresh, spicy at the same time.

Northern style laap sausage

Another laap dish, but then in the shape of a sausage.

This grilled sausage is fatty and very coarse in texture.

As laap means chopped, we suppose that the sausage meat has been chopped with a knife instead of going through a meat grinder.

It reminds us of the French saucisse au couteau.

Another delicious treat, the meat is seasoned perfectly and the outside has a lovely caramelised sear on it.

Yum!

Claypot baked glass noodles with Tamworth belly and brown crab meat

Save the best for last?

Because these claypot glass noodles were just to die for.

Claypot baked glass noodles with Tamworth belly and brown crab meat: sounds like music to our ears.

These glass noodles are heaven on earth.

They are soft and crunchy at the same time, packed with a lovely concentrated salty sweet soy sauce type of flavour, they are rich and buttery and everything you have ever wished for.

Served right alongside the noodles is a spicy green chili pepper sauce, that stuff packs a (delicious) punch!

Definitely ordering this again next time.

Blimey, we could just have 3 portion each of these noodles and feel absolutely satisfied.

A must try at Kiln Soho!

Would we go back to Kiln Soho?

Absolutely.

Next time we find ourselves in London again, we are definitely going back.

The awesome thing about Kiln Soho is that the menu changes often, depending on the seasons or what fresh produce the kitchen team could lay their hands on.

Since we LOVED our lunch here, we are looking forward to our next meal here.

Check Kiln Soho’s website for the current menu!

Would we recommend Kiln Soho?

Definitely.

You might want to book a table to make sure you get in.

We were just lucky we guess, however next time we would surely make a reservation.

Address

Kiln Soho
58 Brewer St
London
W1F 9TL
United Kingdom