Asian-influenced small plates · Fitzrovia · $$ · Solid · should-visit · verified

Foley's

The menu was rehearsed for six weeks in a test kitchen under the railway arches off Goldhawk Road before this room opened.

Why go

For a counter and a menu that has no business working. The premise was the spice routes, and then the Americas got added, which is the kind of thing that usually produces a menu with no centre. Melissa York said as much in City AM three weeks after it opened, calling it "the sort of premise that fills me with dread, a recipe for an ill-defined, jack-of-all-trades menu", and then gave the kitchen its due: head chef Mitz Vora "creates something relatively coherent, often surprising and sometimes rather wonderful", because "a street food ethos runs throughout, and it somehow tastes like it all comes out of the same kitchen" (City AM). Vora had come out of The Palomar in Soho, and she says you can taste it.

That was July 2016 and it is still the only review anyone has published. What is current is the shape of the place: seventy seats over two floors, "a walk up outdoor bar, a chef's counter downstairs and a large dining room on the ground floor", Asian-influenced food, cocktails and sake (venue). The house philosophy is worth reading before you decide where to sit: "From having our chefs serve our food, to putting a bar on the street outside our restaurant. If it works, it works."

Order this / avoid

Order: a counter seat, then small plates across the map, and sake rather than the obvious cocktail.
Avoid: the dining room if the counter has space, and a late Sunday, since it stops at nine.

What locals & experts say

Melissa York, City AM (July 2016), on the concept and the cooking, in the same breath: the premise "fills me with dread", and yet Vora "creates something relatively coherent, often surprising and sometimes rather wonderful". ref She also notes that the service was already sharp at three weeks old, "a little over-friendly for my liking, but I'm a miserable bastard".
The same review, on the pedigree: "Vora used to be sous chef at Soho's Palomar, and you can see the influence." ref
Nothing since. No bylined review after July 2016 surfaced on 1 August 2026, and no chef names this restaurant in the 622 rows of London industry recommendations held here. Hot Dinners carries a listing rather than a verdict.

Good to know

Where: 23 Foley Street W1W 6DU. Our own geocode record has the postcode as W1W 6DR; the food register and Hot Dinners both say 6DU.
The room: seventy covers over two floors, with the chef's counter downstairs and the dining room at street level. The layout has changed since 2016, when the dining room was upstairs under Damien Hirst dot paintings.
Who cooks: unknown. Mitz Vora opened it and the restaurant names nobody today, so nothing above is claimed about the current pass.
Timing: noon to 10pm Monday to Thursday, noon to 9pm Sunday.
Booking: by email or phone.
Hygiene: FSA rating 5, Westminster, inspected 25 June 2026. Components 5, 5 and 5, where higher is worse. Clean, and five weeks old. ref

Jeff's take (his words)

Jeff saved this restaurant with no note. His raw saved-places export carries an empty Note for the row, so nothing above is in his voice and no order is attributed to him.

Verdict (Chef Jeff ladder)

should-visit — They rehearsed this menu for six weeks in a test kitchen under the railway arches off Goldhawk Road before opening the permanent room in June 2016, and it shows in the one thing a menu built from everywhere usually gets wrong. Melissa York went in expecting the worst, calling the spice-route-plus-the-Americas premise 'the sort of premise that fills me with dread', and came out saying the head chef 'creates something relatively coherent, often surprising and sometimes rather wonderful', with 'a street food ethos' running through it so that 'it somehow tastes like it all comes out of the same kitchen'. That chef was Mitz Vora, out of The Palomar, and that was ten years ago; nobody publishes who cooks here now. The room today is seventy seats over two floors with a chef's counter downstairs, a walk-up bar on the pavement, and sake alongside the cocktails. The house line is 'From having our chefs serve our food, to putting a bar on the street outside our restaurant. If it works, it works.' Sit at the counter.