The Claypot That Makes the Queue Worth It
Ben Chapman's Brewer Street counter cooks regional Thai over fire and clay pots, no reservations under four people, and the seat opposite the kitchen is the only one to want.
The claypot arrives lidless and still hissing, glass noodles tangled with Tamworth belly and the sweet-brown weight of crab meat pooled at the bottom. It is the dish the room is built around, and the reason the counter opposite the kitchen has a queue outside it most nights of the week.
Ben Chapman opened Kiln on Brewer Street in 2016 as the follow-up to Smoking Goat, and it now sits in a group that includes Mountain and Impala — a small London stable that has done more than anyone to reset what regional Thai cooking looks like on a UK menu. Everything here goes over coal, into wood-fired grills, or into clay. There are no desserts. There is no pad thai. The dining room downstairs exists but it is not the point.
A twenty-seat counter facing an open fire, the best Thai cooking in London, and no reservation to make it easier on you.
Editorial Deep
The claypot lands first because it should — glass noodles slick with pork fat, brown crab meat sunk into the bottom of the pot, the whole thing carrying the sweet-savoury weight that Northern Thai cooking gets right and most UK Thai kitchens miss entirely. Order it before you order anything else.
Conversation is possible but you will lean in. The kitchen is open, the grills are working the whole service, and the counter sits close enough to the fire that the sound of it — the hiss of pork fat, the scrape of a clay pot being pulled off coals — is part of what you are paying for. Music sits under all of it rather than over it.
Party size decides everything here. One, two or three people: no booking of any kind, and the queue starts forming a few minutes before the noon or 5pm opening. Four or more can book via SevenRooms and should. Everyone else lines up.
The claypot, a cumin skewer, the grilled pork jowl, and a beer — that is a genuine dinner, cooked over live fire in central Soho, for less than a starter costs three streets away in Mayfair. That version is the one to recommend, and it is why the room stays full.
The bar stools are the thing that would have to change, and they will not. Ninety minutes on a backless counter stool is the trade for the seat opposite the fire, and the calculation is honest: if the counter is what you came for, the stool is what you accept. If it is not, the downstairs room exists and the meal there is not worth the trip.
What to eat
Don't miss.
Claypot Baked Glass Noodles with Tamworth Belly & Brown Crab Meat, Aged Cull Yaw & Cumin Skewer, Grilled Pork Jowl with Ubon Relish
“Regional Thai cooked over fire at a counter that will not take your reservation, with a backless stool as the price of the seat.”
Go at opening in twos and sit at the counter. If you need to book, need four-top comfort, or need a chair with a back, Som Saa in Spitalfields is the answer instead.
The Verdict
