The Guardian
Grace Dent gave her seal of approval to the “distinctive, delicious” cooking at one of the year’s most anticipated new restaurants, from ex-Mangal II chef Sertaç Dirik and restaurateur David Carter of Smokestak and Agora.
The signature kid and freekeh for two (£65) looked “heavy and somewhat intimidating” when it arrived in a clay pot. It left “picked completely clean, as did the pickles alongside: fat, richness, sharpness, all in perfect balance”.
But the “undoubted star” of the show – the dish that makes you “understand the point of all this live-fire hoopla” – was a huge butterflied mackerel with skin crisp from the grill, “its flesh all soft and meaty, and stuffed with a carrot-based slaw cooked in what tastes like rich, deep shellfish liquor”. It was followed by “one of the finest desserts I’ve eaten all year”, mountain tea rice pudding infused with sideritis, a wild Anatolian herb, and finished with a crunchy brulee top.
Grace Dent - 2026-09-20Evening Standard
Joel Golby also loved Kid, although he had trouble getting inside because “their window looks like a door and their door looks like a wall” – a problem other guests may well encounter.
The smoked aubergine and muhammara dips, served with pide blackened on the grill, were both “laugh-with-surprise brilliant”, but Joel saved his highest praise for the “must-order” kid goat to share.
“It’s an amazing dish: rich without being over-indulgent, refined without being particularly pretty, and heavingly filling in a way that undoes the past decade of small plates…. A lot of people are going to lie about having had it just to sound a bit cooler.”
Joel Golby - 2026-09-20The Times
Jay Rayner was one of two critics this week who reviewed the new venture from acclaimed duo David Carter (Smokestak, Oma) and Sertaç Dirik (Mangal II), describing it as “very London, 2026…. the place that annoying friend of yours with the worrying Instagram habit wants to eat at right now.”
For all the fuss about it, and despite its “brilliant and also utterly opaque” wine list, Jay was resolutely unimpressed. This is “a Turkish restaurant in Soho for people who don’t fancy the schlep to Dalston”, he said. Its cooking is built around “fire and the fattier cuts and the bigger flavours”, and is really no better than that found in the brightly lit Turkish restaurants of north or east London from which it takes inspiration.
The move to Soho was “the equivalent of moving from an indie record label to a major,” Jay said. The dark and moody interior was engineered in a way that “recalls the psychological trick of serving a standard whisky in a heavy-bottomed glass, to make guests think better of the booze… It’s diverting and fun. But don’t mistake it for some stunning improvement on the restaurant culture from which it evolved.”
Jay Rayner - 2026-09-27The Times
Camilla Long also noted the noise around a restaurant that arrived “on a petrol-driven magic carpet of hype”, and whose Instagram feed “reads like an Oscars acceptance speech”. But “in spite of all this – in spite of its immense silliness and self-regard and its desperation to be liked – I loved it. Kid slaps.”
The atmosphere, she said, is one of “controlled anarchy for men who like GQ”, while the menu lists “Biblical trains, offal kebabs, ancient Syrian wheats, flatbreads and the goat – literally Jesus food… the bony ass Last Supper to the self-appointed messiahs of media land”.
If the meze (“boring old hummus”) is unexciting, the meat (lamb belly kebab, sweetbread kebab, kofte) is “more impressive”, and the signature kid goat served in a huge pot is “a sensational dish, lamby and velvety and comforting”. In short, the founders have managed to create a confident and upmarket restaurant that is both “slightly dirty and sexy”, “exclusive and filthy”.
Camilla Long - 2026-09-27
