Banh Mi Keu Soho

Hieu Bui left a Kingsland Road kitchen because it ran out of pho broth and had pho back on the menu an hour later: "that is not possible if you are doing things properly" (Restaurant magazine).

Why go

Bui was born in Hanoi, lived in Saigon, and was sent to London in 1999 to study marketing. He waited tables at Viet Ho on Kingsland Road, opened Cay Tre on Old Street with his uncle around 2003, then Viet Grill in 2006 and Cay Tre Soho in 2011. Kêu is the counter format that came out of all of it, and he is direct about why he likes it: it is his most successful venture and the easiest to roll out.

The kitchen rules are the reason to take a sandwich shop seriously. Marrow bones are soaked to draw out the impurities and then simmered for twenty-four hours. Braised meats are made fresh rather than batched and frozen. The baguettes are baked every day and filled to order, and the noodle bowls use hand-pulled noodles flown in from Saigon (Kêu, via This Is Soho).

This is the Poland Street shop, and it is not interchangeable with the others. There are four Kêu premises on the food hygiene register, and this one trades into the evening while the City counter on London Wall is a weekday lunch operation that shuts at three.

Order this / avoid

• Order: the classic banh mi, or roast pork, or roast duck, which is the order Jake Missing gives (The Infatuation). The Hoi An Deluxe if you want everything at once: ham, roast pork belly, head cheese, chicken liver pâté, a pork-and-onion gravy and pork floss over the top. The smoky aubergine baguette if you are not eating meat. A noodle bowl for the Saigon noodles. Vietnamese iced coffee over condensed milk.
• Avoid: planning around the City sibling's hours, which are completely different. And do not come looking for somewhere to sit for an hour.

What locals & experts say

• Jake Missing, The Infatuation, on the Soho shop specifically, rated in its 7 band: "The Soho outpost of this casual Vietnamese cafe is just as reliable as its Shoreditch sibling. Their banh mi's are always tasty - the classic, roast pork or roast duck are our go-tos - but, the meat and rice dishes here are similarly good. It's a meal that suits quick lunches as well as prolonged ones, solo ones or social ones." ref
• The Infatuation's ranked banh mi guide places Kêu sixth in London, writing about the brand rather than one shop: "With locations in Soho, Shoreditch, and The City, Kêu is probably London's most recognisable banh mi mini-chain." On the sandwich: "Their Hoi An Deluxe combines ham, roast pork belly, sliced head cheese, chicken liver pâté, and a gravy-ish sauce that's heavy on pork and sweet onion flavour. Oh, and pork floss too." And on the bread: "A bread you could go to war with. Bronzed, crunchy, and very submarine-like." ref
• Hieu Bui, to Joe Lutrario in Restaurant magazine, November 2023, on the standard he holds: "Take the pho for example. When I was working for another of the restaurants on Kingsland Road we ran out of the broth. An hour later, pho was back on the menu. That is not possible if you are doing things properly." ref

Good to know

• Where: Munro House, 9 Poland Street W1F 8PY, near the Great Marlborough Street junction and a short walk from Oxford Circus. Phone 020 7439 8188.
• Which one: four Kêu shops are on the food hygiene register. This is Soho. The curated sibling is the City counter at 168 London Wall. The Old Street original and a newer Borough High Street site are neither of them.
• Timing: this shop trades from mid-morning into the evening, seven days, which is a different proposition from the City counter's weekday 10:30 to 3pm. The exact times could not be confirmed against the venue's own channel, so check before a late run.
• Booking: walk in. It is a narrow counter built for turnover.
• Price: cheap, the $ band, in W1.
• Diet: the venue names a smoky aubergine baguette among the things to order, so there is a vegetarian option on the board.
• Hygiene: Food Standards Agency rating 4, inspected 12 June 2026, Westminster, FHRSID 741320. Component scores hygiene 5, structural 10, confidence in management 5, where lower is better. Worth knowing that the group's other three shops each hold a 5, so this is the outlier rather than the house standard. ref
• Website: omitted deliberately. Both of the group's own domains refuse our fetcher, so the venue's own words here come from the Soho neighbourhood site, which republishes them.
• Who runs it: Hieu Bui, also behind Cay Tre, Cay Tre Soho and Viet Grill.

Jeff's take (his words)

• Note: none. His saved-places export carries an empty note for this row, so the master CSV's "Banh mi counter save" is enrichment text rather than his, and nothing here is attributed to him.

Verdict (Chef Jeff ladder)

could-visit — Go if you are in Soho and want a sandwich rather than a sitting. Hieu Bui was born in Hanoi, came to London in 1999 to study marketing, waited tables on Kingsland Road and decided he could do it better, and built Cay Tre, Viet Grill and then Kêu, which he calls his most successful thing and also the easiest to roll out. His test for a pho kitchen is worth repeating: at the restaurant he worked in they ran out of broth and had pho back on the menu an hour later, and 'that is not possible if you are doing things properly.' At Kêu the marrow bones are soaked to draw out the impurities and simmered for twenty-four hours, braised meats are made fresh rather than batched and frozen, the baguettes are baked every day and filled to order, and the noodles are hand-pulled and flown in from Saigon. The Infatuation ranks Kêu sixth of all the banh mi in London and rates this Soho counter in its 7 band, with Jake Missing calling it 'just as reliable as its Shoreditch sibling' and naming the classic, roast pork and roast duck as the orders. Two things keep it at could-visit. It is a narrow counter built for turnover rather than a room to spend an evening in. And of the four Kêu shops on the food hygiene register, this is the only one whose last inspection returned a 4 rather than a 5. Both of those are the honest shape of a very good lunch.