KID Soho Review: David Carter’s Turkish Restaurant, Tested

Is KID Soho worth the hype? Yes, and the slow roasted kid goat is the reason. I walked into the most talked about new restaurant in London this autumn expecting a scene, and I walked out thinking about a clay pot of goat, a piece of pide, and a bill that stung a little less than I feared. This KID Soho review covers what I ate, what it cost, and whether you should book.

Key Takeaways

• KID Soho serves Central Anatolian cooking from chef Sertaç Dirik, formerly of Mangal II, with restaurateur David Carter of Smokestak, Manteca, OMA and Agora behind the room.
• The dish to order is the kid goat with fig leaf and freekeh for two, priced at £60. It feeds two properly and it is the best thing on the menu.
• Budget around £60 a head if you build your order around the kid and share sensibly. Order freely with drinks and the bill climbs toward £90 a head.
• Book ahead. KID Soho opened on 1 September 2026 and it has been one of the hardest tables in Soho to get since.
• The entrance sits on Bateman Street, not Frith Street, so look for the dark door with the small KID logo.

What Is KID Soho?

KID Soho is the first solo restaurant from chef Sertaç Dirik, the chef who turned his family ocakbaşı Mangal II on Kingsland Road into one of the most talked about Turkish restaurants in the country. He left Mangal II in 2023, and London has been waiting to see what he would do next. The answer is a partnership with David Carter, the man behind Smokestak, Manteca, OMA and Agora, in a corner spot at 53 to 55 Frith Street in Soho.

The cooking leans into the flavours of Central Anatolia, the region in modern day Türkiye where Dirik’s family comes from. Fire sits at the heart of it, with a wood fired oven, a mangal grill, and a clay pot tandır, and British produce runs through the menu. The name tells you the headline act: kid goat, cooked slowly in the wood oven and served in a clay pot. That is the pedigree behind this KID Soho review, and the food has to live up to it.

KID Soho Review: The Room and the Atmosphere

KID Soho sits on the corner of Frith Street and Bateman Street, in the Tapestry Building. The entrance is on Bateman Street, and it is a dark door with a small KID logo, so plenty of people try the Frith Street window first. I watched it happen twice before I found the right door myself.

Inside, the room is warm, dark and loud in the good Soho way. The open kitchen puts the fire where you can see it, and the smell of wood smoke and grilled bread reaches you before you sit down. This is not a quiet, white tablecloth dinner. It is a buzzy, elbows on the table kind of place, and that suits the food.

Service is bright and enthusiastic, and the team knows the menu properly. Ask what to order and you get a straight answer, not a shrug. Lunch runs Monday to Saturday from 12.00 to 15.00, and dinner runs from 17.30 to 22.00. The restaurant does not open on Sundays.

KID Soho Review: What I Ate

I ordered the way the menu wants you to order: small plates first, then the big sharing dish, then something sweet. Here is how it went, dish by dish.

The breads are the right start

Start with the pide, because the breads at KID Soho are a cut above what the prices suggest. The tombik pide costs £5.50 and comes out of the wood fired oven puffed and blistered, soft inside with a bit of chew. The seeded sourdough pide is grilled over the mangal and brushed with kaymak butter, and it picks up smoke and char from the coals. Order both. The grilled version is the one I would pick if I could only have one, because the kaymak butter melting into the charred crust is the kind of simple pleasure that makes a meal.

Snacks and meze

The snacks section is small and sharp. The bluefin ezme with kapya pepper costs £6 and wakes the palate up. The courgette flower stuffed with Tulum goat’s cheese and atom honey costs £7, and the fiery kick in the honey is the perfect foil for the cheese, which oozes out when you cut into the flower. The humus with fried chickpeas costs £6, silky underneath with shards of crispy chickpea on top.

The meze continues the same story. The börek with beyaz peynir and courgette was the outright highlight of my meal: brilliant pastry, a generous cheese filling, and a green courgette sauce underneath that ties the whole plate together. The house made çökelek cheese with peas and cucumber is the lighter counterpoint, and the içli köfte, a cricket ball sized bulgur dumpling stuffed with slow braised aged ex dairy beef, roasted onions and grape molasses, costs £13 and works as a sharing starter for two.

One honest note for this KID Soho review: the KID sucuk with grilled peach was the only dish I would skip. The idea is good and the peach is a nice sweet contrast, but the sucuk itself did not land as well as everything around it.

The mains and the grill

The XL Cornish scallop with coco bean fasülye costs £14, and I almost skipped it. That would have been a mistake, mainly because the stewed white beans underneath are so good. The Adana köfte on lavaş with grilled tomatoes and onions costs £26, and it is the kind of kebab that ruins other kebabs for you. The meat is minced with a zırh knife, the way it should be, and the lavaş soaks up the juices. The grilled quail with ezme costs £14, a nod to a similar dish at Mangal II, and the lamb saddle with roast garlic and sivri pepper ezme is worth ordering if the kid is sold out.

The Kid Goat: The Dish to Order

The kid, fig leaf and freekeh for two costs £60, and it is the dish this KID Soho review exists to tell you about. Slow roasted kid arrives in a clay pot on a bed of freekeh, chickpeas and shredded cabbage. It is a big portion with a lot of meat on it. The fat has been rendered down beautifully, so the crisp surface bits are packed with flavour without ever tipping into greasy or overpowering.

The freekeh underneath catches all the juices, which is exactly the point. Dirik learned the method on a research trip to Istanbul, cooking kid goat with the chef Musa Dağdeviren, who seasons the goat with salt, covers it, and roasts it in a wood oven until the bones lift out of the meat. The version at KID Soho follows the same logic: salt, fire, time, and a grain that soaks up everything the meat gives off.

Build your whole order around this dish. Three or four small plates, the kid for two, and one dessert is a complete meal.

Dessert at KID Soho

Save room for dessert, because no KID Soho review is complete without the sweet course. The mountain tea rice pudding with orange blossom costs £9, creamy and delicately flavoured, with a bruleed top and blackberries alongside. The baklava with cardamom, cherry and almond costs £10, and it is the sweeter, richer finish if that is what you want after the kid.

What Does KID Soho Cost?

The honest number for this KID Soho review: a bill for two, ordering freely with drinks, came to £187.31 including the discretionary service charge, which is a little under £94 each. We over ordered, comfortably, and left genuinely stuffed. The kid for two at £60 is the anchor, and it feeds two people properly on its own, so if you build around it with three or four smaller plates and one drink each, you can eat very well here for closer to £60 a head. That puts KID Soho in the mid to high bracket for London dining, and lunch is the smart play if you want the same kitchen at a lower spend.

KID Soho Review: The Verdict

So, is KID Soho worth it? Yes. The hype is real, and it is earned by the cooking rather than the room or the names on the door. The kid goat is genuinely special, the börek is one of the best plates I have eaten in Soho this year, and the breads alone justify the trip. The sucuk was the only miss, and one miss in a meal this strong is easy to forgive.

What holds it back from a perfect score is the price of a full blowout and the booking battle. At £94 a head for a big order, it is a treat rather than a regular. But at £60 a head built around the kid, it is one of the best value special meals in central London right now.

Would I go back? Yes, and I would order the same way: both pides, the courgette flower, the börek, the içli köfte, the kid for two, and the mountain tea rice pudding. That is the meal KID Soho was built to serve.

If you like this kind of honest London review, read my Majajan The Queen of Spice review for a very different Soho experience, and my Aqua Shard afternoon tea review for a special occasion alternative. For a steakhouse comparison, the top 5 tomahawk steakhouses in central London list is the place to start.

Practical Details

KID Soho is at 53 to 55 Frith Street, London W1D 4SJ, with the entrance on Bateman Street. It opens Monday to Saturday, 12.00 to 15.00 and 17.30 to 22.00, and stays closed on Sundays. The website is kid.london and the Instagram is @kid_soho. Expect around £60 a head for a sensible order built around the kid for two, and closer to £90 a head for a full blowout with drinks. Book ahead: it has been one of the hardest tables in London to get since it opened on 1 September 2026, though lunch walk ins are worth trying.

FAQ

What should I order at KID Soho?

Order the kid goat with fig leaf and freekeh for two at £60, the börek with beyaz peynir and courgette, the courgette flower with Tulum goat’s cheese and atom honey, the içli köfte, and both pides. Finish with the mountain tea rice pudding.

How much does KID Soho cost?

Expect around £60 a head for a sensible order built around the kid for two, and closer to £90 a head if you order freely with drinks. A full bill for two with drinks and service can reach about £187.

Do I need to book KID Soho?

Yes, book ahead. KID Soho has been one of the most talked about new restaurants in London since it opened on 1 September 2026, and tables go fast. Lunch walk ins are your best chance without a booking.

Is KID Soho worth the hype?

Yes. This KID Soho review found the cooking earns the hype: the kid goat is genuinely special, the börek is one of the best plates in Soho this year, and the breads alone justify the trip. The only miss was the sucuk with grilled peach.