Hotels near Kiln

Kiln cooks northern Thai food over wood and in clay pots along a counter on Brewer Street, and it holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand rather than a star, which tells you exactly what kind of place it is: serious cooking, unserious prices. The aged lamb and cumin skewers and the clay pot baked glass noodles with brown crab and pork belly are the two dishes nobody should skip. Jungle curry, sai ua smoked northern Thai sausage, and whatever whole fish is on the specials board fill out a meal at roughly £30 to £40 per head, about €35 to €46, and the kitchen sources heritage-breed meat rather than commodity pork.

The catch is the seating. The ground-floor counter is walk-in only, about twenty stools facing the grill, and the queue on Brewer Street from 6pm on a Friday is real and unsheltered. The downstairs room takes bookings for parties of four or more, which is the only way to guarantee a table. The counter is the better experience regardless: low light, grill haze, and cooks working an arm's length from your plate. It opens Monday to Saturday until 11pm and Sunday until 9pm.

Pro Tip: Turn up alone or as a pair at noon on a weekday and you will get a counter stool immediately. Solo diners are seated fastest at any time, so if you are two, splitting up along the counter beats waiting forty minutes for a pair of adjacent stools.