Best places to eat soup noodles in London
This is the time of year for eating soup noodles, a dish guaranteed to sustain you through the winter trudge. But really any month is the month for soupy noodles, because they are – in all iterations – perfect dishes. Whether that’s eating pho in Vietnam when the air is thick enough to chew and leaves a slick of moisture on everything, or slurping on rib-hugging ramen when steamed windows block out sleeting skies.
Here are some of the best bowls of soup noodles in London.
Lanzhou Lamian Noodle Bar
I don’t think there is a restaurant in London I have been to more than Lanzhou Lamian – or at the very least, no restaurant I have been to more and only every ordered the same thing. Stewed beef soup la-mian (G17). This place wedged on Cranbourn Street in Leicester Square’s armpit has been rhapsodised about for years. But it’s just such a solid option where you can be in and out within 20 minutes, your time paced by the rhythmic thump of noodles being beaten and stretched. Papa Noodle in Holborn is another great Lanzhou-style spot and serves gelatinous hunks of beef and chewy noodles to a studenty crowd where the University of London converges. There are also some very good places cropping up around Liverpool Street, including a branch of JWD Noodle Bar and YeYe’s.
Robin’s Ramen
Backed by Chris D’Sylva and chef Max Coen, the duo behind the Michelin-starred Dorian in Notting Hill, Robin’s Ramen is run by Robin Kosuge. In its current incarnation, this ramen pop-up is operating under the neon lights of the Supermarket of Dreams in Holland Park, where it will run until the end of March before making a more permanent move. The Dorian influence is strong: incredibly high-quality ingredients used to make incredibly tasty bowls of broth. There is novelty in things like lobster ramen, but the pork, as always in Japan, is king. The pop-up pulses with a slightly chaotic energy (and an uneven soft launch clearly did the place no favours on Google review), but it’s fun, playful and clever cooking. For more traditional ramen, Tenmaru in Finsbury Park is always delicious, and they now have a second restaurant conveniently located near Oxford Circus. Menya Ramen House, a tiny steamy spot in the shadow of the British Museum, is the place I’ve visited since student days to drag myself through winter. The best ramen here is Korean, topped with custardy sundubu (soft tofu) and mounds of homemade kimchi.
Sông Quê Café
Sông Quê is probably not the best bowl of pho in London, but it’s a London icon for a reason. This restaurant feels like the grand dame of Little Vietnam, the stretch of Kingsland Road around Hoxton. The lime green washed interior is pockmarked with sun-faded newspaper clippings of yesteryear. The beef pho is amber clear, its surface skittered with flecks of fat and spring onions. On a Sunday, the place fills up with punters from Columbia Road and the air is thickened by flowers and pho. After two decades, the owners have this month expanded with Sông Quê Pho Bar in Spitalfields, a sign perhaps of a younger cohort taking up the reins at this legacy restaurant. Away from Hoxton, south east London, centering on the Vietnamese community around Deptford, has some excellent soup noodle spots (beyond pho). Phở Thuý Tây Café in Surrey Quays and Đặc Sản Xứ Nghệ on the tail end of Old Kent Road pincer my flat, and I frequent both often.
Koya
Kitsune udon – fat, chewy flour noodles in a saline-sweet dashi topped with a cloth of deep fried tofu – is a perfect dish, and it took visiting Japan to realise I’d take udon over ramen 90 per cent of the time. Koya, which has branches in the City, Soho and Hackney, has been the benchmark in London for udon for over 10 years. Which in part is because they have maintained a really very high quality, and partly because there aren’t loads of places (besides the popular chain Marugame) to eat udon in London. Koya is also known for inventive collaborations with high-profile chefs, and perhaps above all, the unparalleled English breakfast udon.
7 Floor Malaysia Tea Room
A slice of a restaurant in Holborn, 7 Floor’s assam laksa is fecund-deep with tamarind and fish. I’ve never been to Malaysia, but people who have love to bandy around the term ‘authentic’ when it comes to 7 Floor. Seriously aromatic bordering on medicinal, this is not the coconut concussion of British ‘laksa’, and it’s so much better for it. It’s also testament to just how good this part of London is for its breadth of noodle soup offerings. Normah’s, holed up inside Queensway Market, is a family-run restaurant that has earned itself almost mythic status. Curried laksa here is enormously comforting and cooked with real care. Both 7 Floor and Normah’s are tiny, incongruous places turning out amazing food: Malaysia in the folds of London.