The best counter seats in Soho

The best counter seat in Soho is at Barrafina on Dean Street: a marble bar, a tortilla, a glass of sherry, and cooks close enough to ask what is good today. Soho has always eaten best on a stool, elbow to elbow with strangers and close to the heat. Counters suit solo diners, first dates and anyone who likes to watch a kitchen work. Here are the ones we would queue for, and where to sit.

Barrafina, 26-27 Dean Street

Barrafina Dean Street is walk-in only, first come, first served. While you wait, there is a standing bar for a drink and a little something, plus a covered, heated terrace. The specials are on a blackboard and the day's produce sits on ice behind the bar, so look before you order. Then take your stool at the marble counter and order a tortilla, the milk-fed lamb sweetbreads and a sherry. It opens at noon and again at five. Be there for either.

Kiln, 58 Brewer Street

Kiln is one long stainless-steel counter facing the open kitchen, cooking Thai food over fire and in clay pots. Time Out calls the back seats the pyromaniac seats, because they look straight into the kiln, and that is where you want to be. Order the pork loin with lime, fish sauce and chilli, the wild ginger and short rib curry, and more brown rice than seems sensible. The kitchen runs until eleven from Monday to Saturday, so it works as a late supper too.

Sushi Kyu, 30 Brewer Street

A single L-shaped bar, and an omakase that costs £74.80 at dinner or £51.80 at lunch. You get a hamachi sashimi with yuzu ponzu to start, then eight pieces of nigiri, which might include red mullet, blowtorched Korean turbot, squid with sea urchin and a trio of tuna, then a chutoro handroll and a sorbet. Time Out reckons you would struggle to find better sushi in London for the money. Book lunch: it is the bargain.

Humble Chicken, 54 Frith Street

Angelo Sato's counter is the big night out of Soho counter dining, with an 18-course omakase at £185. Book well ahead, sit as close to the pass as you can, and let the courses come.

Bocca di Lupo, 12 Archer Street

The chef's counter at Bocca di Lupo is a run of high leather stools, with backs and foot rests, in front of the open kitchen, and it can be booked online. The menu of regional Italian dishes changes twice a day, and if you bring a dog, the window end of the counter is yours. Order small plates from three different regions and a glass of something from the fourth.

Impala, 13-14 Dean Street

The newest great counter in Soho is the kitchen counter at Impala, under the hanging ducks, watching the grill and the oven. The cooking is Egyptian, by way of the team behind Kiln. Order the wood-fired duck with fig jus and the white bean dip with bottarga, and plenty of bread.

Two bars that feed you

• The Palomar, 34 Rupert Street. The Infatuation says this is best experienced at the bar, and we agree. Order the kubaneh bread, the dips and the chilli butter chicken.
• Bone Daddies, 31 Peter Street. A ramen bar where you are invited to sit at the bar, open until eleven at the end of the week. Order the Bone Daddies tonkotsu, or the T22.

Eating alone in Soho

Counters are the best answer to the solo dinner. Nobody looks twice at one person on a stool, the cooks keep you company, and you get the best view in the room. Our solo route: a sherry and a tortilla at Barrafina at five, or a lunch omakase at Sushi Kyu, where £51.80 buys a hamachi sashimi, eight nigiri and a handroll, and the chef talks you through every piece. On a cold night, take a back seat at Kiln, facing the fire, with a curry and a bowl of rice, and stay until the kitchen shuts at eleven.

How to eat at a counter

• Go in twos, or alone. Counters are cruel to groups of five. Two people get seated, five people get a drink and a long wait.
• Arrive at opening. The walk-in counters fill fast, and after that it is a queue.
• Talk to the cooks. Ask what came in today. At Barrafina it is on the blackboard, at Kiln it is in the fire, and at Sushi Kyu it is the whole point.
• Order in waves. Two or three plates, then more. A counter is a conversation, not a banquet.

If you only have one counter meal in you this month, make it Barrafina at noon on a weekday. Bring a book, or don't: someone on the next stool will tell you what to order.