Hoppers Soho

Hoppers Soho on Frith Street was the first restaurant in JKS Restaurants' Hoppers group, opening in 2015 to introduce London to the fermented rice-and-coconut pancake bowls, known as hoppers, that are a street-food staple across Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu. The restaurant's small, densely packed dining room channels a mid-century Sri Lankan café aesthetic, with rattan chairs, dark wood, and tiled floors creating a warm, slightly nostalgic setting that has become one of Soho's most consistently busy addresses. The kitchen's plain hopper, a bowl-shaped fermented pancake served with a fried egg cracked into the centre, is the dish most closely associated with the restaurant and has helped popularise the format across London since its opening. Beyond the hopper itself, the menu builds out into bone marrow kothu roti, a chopped flatbread dish stir-fried with egg and meat on a hot griddle, and a black pork curry finished with pol sambol, a coconut relish, both dishes drawing on Sri Lankan and South Indian home cooking rather than restaurant convention. The short rice thali format, in which several curries and sides are served together over rice, is a good way to sample the kitchen's range in one sitting. Reservations are accepted and recommended for dinner, since the compact room and high demand mean walk-in waits can be long on weekend evenings; lunch is generally easier to secure without booking. The atmosphere stays lively and informal throughout service, suited to a quick, flavour-forward meal rather than a lingering one, and its Soho location puts it within easy reach of the West End's theatres and bars for a pre- or post-show dinner.