Kiln

Kiln is a counter, a few tables and an open fire, and it produces one of the best plates of food in London for well under the price of a tasting menu. Ben Chapman opened it on Brewer Street, and the format has barely changed since: sit at the counter, watch everything cook in clay pots and iron skillets over hardwood, order more than you meant to.

The cooking is Thai, drawing on northern and rural traditions rather than the sweeter Bangkok-restaurant register most British Thai food inherited. It took a Michelin Bib Gourmand in 2017 and was named the UK’s National Restaurant of the Year in 2018, which for a room this small and this cheap was a statement.

The dish is the clay-pot glass noodles with brown crab. It is the single most ordered thing in the restaurant for good reason, and if you leave without it you have made a mistake. The rest of the menu is short, changes often and rewards ordering broadly.

Counter seats are held for walk-ins, which is the way to do it: go early or late, sit at the fire, and accept that you will be shoulder to shoulder with strangers.

Our verdict: the best value cooking in Soho, and the clay-pot glass noodles are worth queueing for on their own.

Go if: you want exceptional food without a tasting-menu bill. Skip if: you want a quiet table for a long conversation.

Walk in for the counter. Brewer Street, Soho.