Kiln Soho provides an authentic and small menu of rustic Thai cuisine cooked over fire.
On a cold January Monday evening, you do need extra encouragement to brave the elements and go out and eat; the extra push I needed was that today happens to be my birthday, so no choice, really. The criteria we set were somewhere thats is busy, lively and serves great food; we decided on Kiln, Soho.
Tonight will be the second visit to Kiln, Soho’s worst-kept secret, a Thai restaurant that, from my first experience, does not hold back regarding taste and ingredients. Thai food should be authentic, and the experience should also reflect the buzz of a Thai restaurant.
I think after reading my kiln soho review, you will be making your way to Soho’s Brewer Street; there are a few things you will need to know.
Upstairs is a bar and kitchen with seating around both areas. These seats are for walk-ins only. You need to either get there early or pop in and put your name down, and they will contact you when your seat is ready or queue before they open; we arrived at 5.30, and the wait was over an hour for the upstairs area. Kiln had only been open for 30 minutes; as I said, this is a popular place.
Luckily, they did have a couple of seats downstairs. You can book seats downstairs, but as I mentioned, most of the restaurant seating is walk-in only, which adds to the buzz of the place.
If you are going, I recommend upstairs, but we were too hungry to wait and downstairs worked well.
Kiln Menu
The Kiln Soho menu is small and does change regularly. Forget the usual the usual UK Thai dishes; you won’t find a Thai green curry here. Kiln’s menu includes a variety of different ingredients, all given Kiln chef Meedu Saad’s treatment in flavour and spicing. Today’s menu included Whitebait, Kippers, ox heart and chicken livers, amongst other favourites of slow-cooked chicken and Bavette steak. Whatever you do go for, you are in for a flavour explosion.
The staff were enthusiastic to help and our waiter explained the dishes with knowledge and passion that reminded me of a good sommelier. Drinks consist of beers, cocktails, whisky and wine; for Soho, they are reasonably priced.
So what did we go for? Well, before I go through our menu, I should explain there is no real structure to proceedings. We ordered five dishes, and they arrived in two batches. Basically, as they are cooked, they are sent.
The service is fast and furious, so don’t expect a relaxing over a port and cheese and biscuit-type meal.
The dishes we plucked from the menu,
Slow Grilled Chicken and soy
Stir-Fried Cornish Greens and soy
Grilled Bavette with smoked chilli glaze
Clay pot Baked Glass noodles with Tamworth belly pork and Brown crab meat
Brown Jasmine rice
As you will notice, we played it safe, that was mainly as we were sharing dishes, and my wife is a little less adventurous than me, also she was paying😀
Kiln’s clientele is mainly young, apart from a few old foodies (no prizes for guessing who that was). There is a good mix between locals and tourists. As I said earlier, Kiln’s reputation for quality Thai food is not a secret, and there is good reason why. The food is excellent and exciting, and this transmits to the atmosphere with chatter mainly about the menu. The food takes centre stage at Kiln.
As I mentioned was lucky enough to be treated on account of being another year older, but my better half said the bill represented very good value.
To eat out on a cold Monday early in January, you must be sure you are in for a good time. Kiln delivers on all fronts and is perfect for a celebration -did I mention it was my birthday?
Kiln Soho, 58 Brewer St, London W1F 9TL.
