Berenjak

Romilly Street has no shortage of restaurants competing for attention, but Berenjak stands out by doing something narrower and doing it with real conviction: Persian kebab-house cooking, built around a charcoal grill visible from most of the small dining room.

The joojeh kabab, saffron-marinated chicken thigh, is the dish most people order and the one worth ordering, char-flecked and genuinely juicy rather than dried out the way skewered chicken often is. The flatbreads, sangak baked on a bed of hot pebbles, taftoon soft and pillowy, are baked to order and arrive still warm, and they are as good a reason to visit as the kebabs themselves. Mirza ghasemi, a smoky aubergine and egg dish, is a quieter highlight that rewards ordering alongside the grilled meat.

The room is tight: close tables, low stools, a fair amount of noise bouncing off hard surfaces. It is not a place for a long, leisurely conversation, more somewhere to eat well and move on, which suits its Soho location and the queues that tend to form outside at peak times.

Value is genuinely good for the quality of the cooking, particularly at lunch, though the no-bookings policy for most tables means a wait is common on weekend evenings. Chef Kian Samyani, who runs the wider Berenjak/Bubala stable with Israeli-Persian chef Marc Summers backing the group, has built something that feels distinct from London’s usual Middle Eastern restaurant template rather than another variation on it.

It will not suit anyone wanting a relaxed sit-down evening, but for kebabs and bread done properly, it is one of the better bets in Soho.

Berenjak has since opened a second site at Borough Market, larger and slightly calmer than the Soho original, which gives an alternative for anyone put off by the queues on Romilly Street. Prices remain reasonable throughout, most kebabs sit in the mid-teens, and a full meal with bread and a couple of mazeh plates rarely feels like an extravagance. The narrow site does mean toilets and waiting space are limited, so arriving right at opening or booking where possible is the more comfortable option.