'Kid is quite simply divine': TOM PARKER BOWLES reviews a new Turkish spot in Soho

Updated: 22:46 EDT, 16 October 2026 It doesn’t start well, as I spend a few excruciatingly embarrassing moments trying to wrench open a window that I think is a door. Much to the glee of the punters inside Kid, a new Soho sort-of-Turkish mangal from David Carter. I eventually locate the actual entrance, discreetly marked, just around the corner, and am told by the lovely reception staff that no, I’m not a hapless halfwit, and yes, this has fooled others before. I’m not so sure.Anyway, expectations are high. Carter is an exceptional restaurateur and a man not overly concerned with ‘authenticity’. Smokestak (Texan BBQ), Manteca (Italian trattoria) and Oma (high-end Greek) all work precisely because they are not hidebound by tradition. Here at Kid he has joined forces with chef Sertaç Dirik, the man behind Dalston’s much loved (and lauded) Mangal II. Fire sits at its heart, as it does in any ocakbași, and while the menu is ‘based around’ the cooking of Anatolia, the dishes are very much their own. Içli köfte: ‘a dish with a mighty, basso profundo roar’The room, all bare bricks and dim, smoky lighting, is already filled with a hubbub as thick as the smoke that pours off that grill. Service is sublime. There’s the lustily spiced complexity of the bluefin tuna ‘ezme’, piled high atop a crisp cracker, a riff on the traditional chopped salad. Içli köfte is a fist-sized dumpling filled with dry aged beef mince, and surrounded by a cool pool of yogurt, a dish with a mighty, basso profundo roar.Muhammara, smoky walnut and roasted red pepper dip, comes with beyaz peynir cheese and more fresh walnuts, a dish that mixes the ethereally pure with the altogether more intricate. Don’t miss the puffy, blistered tombik pide bread to mop up every last scrap. There’s a generosity and abundance here, not just of portion size, but seasoning and flavour, too. This is food in glorious technicolour, and we haven’t even started on the meat.Lamb belly and sweetbread skewers are magnificent, the belly compressed into charred, succulent squares. Underneath, onions, their edges blackened by the grill. Dear god, it’s good. But then comes the slow-cooked shoulder of kid, braised overnight in a clay pot with fig leaf, all spoon-soft meat and crisp burnished skin, the freekeh soaking up all those luscious juices. This is a dish of quiet majesty, the soaring high point of an already outstanding lunch. The pairing of Carter and Dirik is heaven sent. Kid is quite simply divine.About £60pp. Kid, 53-55 Frith Street, London W1; kid.londonRating: