Chet's

The tuna melt is tuna larb blanketed in American cheese, and the fried chicken khao soi is katsu chicken on Chiang Mai curried noodles (Londonist, Time Out).

Why go

Kris Yenbamroong opened Night + Market Song in Silver Lake in 2014 and built it into three Los Angeles rooms and one in Las Vegas. This is the first time the idea has left America. It arrived as a pop-up in Rondo La Cave, the incubator kitchen under the Hoxton Holborn, and took a permanent room in the new Shepherd's Bush hotel in January 2023.

The London menu is not a copy of the LA ones. Time Out's editor, who lived there and knows them, says it "dives into Yenbamroong's deeply Californian take on Thai food" (Time Out). Some dishes are straight: larb gai with lime, mint and coriander chilli; sea bass seared with coconut and lemongrass. The rest is where it gets interesting. A wedge salad under blue cheese with candied pork jowl and a garlic nam jim, which Cooper says arrives "less a salad and more a soup and all the better for that". Fried pineapple rice, crab optional and not really optional, served in half a pineapple. A smashburger. Bottles of Kold Sauce on every table.

Lydia Manch, who has been several times for Londonist, puts the method better than a summary would: the clashes "feel less like fusion and more like a cheerfully chaotic wrestling match" (Londonist).

Know what it costs before you sit down. Plates run GBP 12 to 20 and wine starts around GBP 30, and Manch reports that her low-key visits, a couple of drinks and some snacks, have landed at GBP 45 a head. Portions come in "big on flavour but modest-to-average in size".

Order this / avoid

• Order: the sticky party wings, which crossed the Atlantic intact. Fried pineapple rice with the crab. Waterfall lamb, rare and heavily chillied. The wedge salad. Fried chicken khao soi. Larb gai, and then more larb gai.
• Avoid: budgeting from the plate prices alone. Booking this for a conversation, since it is loud by design and the booths are the loudest part. And ordering as though the plates are large, because they are not.

What locals & experts say

• Leonie Cooper, Food & Drink Editor at Time Out London, January 2023, five stars out of five: "The fried chicken khao soi was another majestic mash-up, with perfect katsu-style chicken plonked on a bed of creamy Chiang Mai curried noodles with bean sprouts and roasted chilli oil." On the wedge salad: "the gloriously gloopy blue-cheese-slathered wedge salad, complete with candied pork jowl and garlic nam jim dipping sauce. It was less a salad and more a soup and all the better for that." ref
• Lydia Manch, Londonist, March 2023, after several visits: "The Chet's menu's fiery, with clashes of Thai and LA food tropes that feel less like fusion and more like a cheerfully chaotic wrestling match." Her picks are "the waterfall lamb, grilled, rare, extremely tender, extremely chillied, and the crabby, garlic-heavy pineapple rice." ref
• The price warning, from the same piece: "it's easy for things to escalate; the portions are coming in big on flavour but modest-to-average in size, and even our supposedly lowkey drop-ins, a couple of drinks each and some snacks, have come in at GBP 45+ a head." Her conclusion anyway: "whether we've visited with restraint or wild abandon, we've yet to regret it." ref
• No industry vote. None of the 589 London picks in our chef-vote file names Chet's.
• Nothing since March 2023. Both reviews here are from the restaurant's first quarter, which is worth knowing about a hotel-group concept three years on.

Good to know

• Where: inside The Hoxton Shepherd's Bush, Threshold House, 65 Shepherd's Bush Green W12 8TX. Shepherd's Bush or Shepherd's Bush Market.
• Timing: it runs as a hotel restaurant, open through the day from the morning, with separate day and night menus.
• Booking: take one for dinner. The room fills with a mix of White City office groups, dates and loud tables of friends.
• Drinks: natural wine from around GBP 30, cocktails GBP 12 to 15, a Thai-spiced take on a Caesar, and sharing builds including a four-person Thaiami Vice.
• What it actually costs: plates GBP 12 to 20, and a multi-visit local reviewer reports GBP 45 a head for what she meant to be a quick drop-in.
• Who runs it: the Hoxton's owner Ennismore built the concept with Yenbamroong rather than the chef opening it alone. It is a hotel-group room with a chef's name on it, which is worth weighing against the two strong reviews.
• Hygiene: Chet's has no FSA registration of its own. The record covering the building is The Hoxton Shepherds Bush, rating 5, Hammersmith and Fulham, inspected 22 August 2025, FHRSID 1619127, components 5/5/5. ref
• Sites: one in London. The chef's own group, Night + Market, runs three rooms in Los Angeles and one in Las Vegas. Anything written about those is about those.

Jeff's take (his words)

• Note: none. His saved-places export carries an empty note for this row. The master CSV line "Kris Yenbamroong's Thai-American diner at the Hoxton" was written by an earlier enrichment pass, so it has been rewritten rather than quoted.

Verdict (Chef Jeff ladder)

should-visit — Worth the detour, and go hungry and slightly ready to spend. Kris Yenbamroong brought his Night + Market idea across from Los Angeles, ran it as a pop-up in the Hoxton Holborn's incubator kitchen, and landed it permanently in the Shepherd's Bush hotel in January 2023. The cooking is Californian-Thai in the literal sense: a tuna melt built from tuna larb under American cheese, fried chicken khao soi where katsu chicken sits on Chiang Mai curried noodles, a wedge salad under blue cheese with candied pork jowl and a garlic nam jim. Lydia Manch, who has been several times for Londonist, calls the clashes 'less like fusion and more like a cheerfully chaotic wrestling match'. Time Out's Food and Drink Editor gave it five stars and singled out the khao soi. The catch is arithmetic. Plates read GBP 12 to 20 and Manch reports that a couple of drinks and some snacks still comes to GBP 45 a head, with portions big on flavour and modest in size. It holds at should-visit rather than higher because it is a hotel group's concept rather than a chef's own room, no industry voter has named it, and the entire critical record is from the first three months of 2023.