Noodles and ramen in Soho
Udon in walnut miso, wonton soup in twenty minutes, dan dan with a kick and beef noodles at 4am. Soho's best bowls, one slurp at a time.
By Only Soho Editorial
The best bowl of noodles in Soho is the udon at Koya, 50 Frith Street, and the order is the mushroom udon with walnut miso. But Soho is a noodle town in every direction: Japanese on Frith Street and Peter Street, Cantonese and Sichuan on Wardour Street, and beef noodles until the small hours just over the Chinatown line. Here are the bowls we go back for.
Udon: Koya, 50 Frith Street
Koya feels like a proper Japanese udon-ya, and it is walk-in only, open from ten until ten every day. The menu runs from a kitsune udon at £15.50 to the tenzaru, cold noodles with tempura, at £21. The curry udon is £15.50 and the buta miso, with pork, is £15, and if there are two of you, the Koya set menu is £35 a head. Order the mushroom udon with walnut miso, hot. On a hangover morning, the English breakfast udon is the cure. Go at opening, or after the lunch rush.
Ramen: Bone Daddies, 31 Peter Street
Just off Wardour Street, Bone Daddies Soho is a ramen bar where you are invited to sit at the bar, open from ten in the morning until eleven at night from Thursday to Saturday. There is a new limited-edition ramen every month, and the group also does a breakfast ramen with Cumberland sausage, hash browns and a soy egg, a full English gatecrashing a ramen bar. Order the Bone Daddies tonkotsu, the house bowl, or the T22.
Sichuan: Barshu, 28 Frith Street
Barshu is Soho's Sichuan specialist, and business, as Time Out puts it, is good. Order the dan dan noodles and the dumplings in chilli oil, and have a cold beer standing by.
Cantonese: Wong Kei, 41-43 Wardour Street
Wong Kei is a canteen, and that is the point. You come for speed, not ceremony. Order the wonton noodle soup, a plate of roast meat on rice for the table, and a spoonful of the chilli oil. You will be out in twenty minutes.
Late: Lanzhou Noodle Bar, 33 Cranbourn Street
Lanzhou Noodle Bar is just over the Chinatown border, with noodles and mains at £9 to £15 and hours to 2am in the week and 5am on Friday and Saturday. Order the beef brisket with noodles in soup, or the crispy siu yok, and the spicy peanut noodles if you want something without meat.
The Wardour Street night shift
- Noodle & Beer, 27 Wardour Street. Sichuan noodles until 4am. Order the braised beef short rib noodles, or the miso noodles, and a cold beer, as the name suggests.
- Old Town 97, 19 Wardour Street. Big tables and a kitchen that closes around 4am. Order the fried udon with shredded duck.
- YeYe's Noodle & Dumpling, Wardour Street. Time Out calls it genuinely tasty, bang-for-your-buck Chinese. Order the Golden Supreme beef rib noodles and the grilled crab and pork dumplings.
Beyond China and Japan
- Speedboat Bar, 30 Rupert Street. Thai, on the Chinatown edge of Soho. Order the drunkard's noodles, which do exactly what they say.
- Rasa Sayang, 5 Macclesfield Street. Malaysian. Order the char kway teow, with a side of roti canai.
Dumplings on the side
Noodles want dumplings, and Gerrard Street has the best. Dumplings' Legend at 15-16 is known for its soup dumplings and stays open until 2am from Thursday to Saturday. Leong's Legend at 39 does soup dumplings too, with a queue in the evenings. Order a basket of each and compare notes.
Udon, ramen, lamian: a quick guide
- Udon is the thick, chewy Japanese wheat noodle, served hot in broth or cold with a dipping sauce. Koya is the place.
- Ramen is the Japanese noodle soup built on a long-cooked broth. Tonkotsu means pork bone, and it is rich. Bone Daddies is the place.
- Lamian are Chinese pulled noodles, and Lanzhou, the city, gives its name to the beef noodle soup. Lanzhou Noodle Bar on Cranbourn Street is the late answer.
How to eat noodles in Soho
Most of these places are walk-in only, so go at opening or late. Slurping is encouraged. Share a plate of dumplings while you wait for your bowl. And for the full Chinatown map, The Infatuation has twenty places worth knowing. Our perfect noodle day: Koya for lunch, Barshu for dinner, and Lanzhou at 3am to finish. On a cold night, there is no better way to see Soho than through the steam off a bowl of broth, with the rain on the window and nowhere else to be.
