Mountain Beak Street
The spider crab omelette gets cut open the moment it hits the table so the residual heat stops cooking it, and the crab and sugar kelp inside come from Car y Mor in West Wales while the butter comes from Caws Teifi in Cardigan.
Why go
Tomos Parry took the corner where a Byron used to be and built a kitchen you cannot hide anything in. Jimi Famurewa described two Gozney wood ovens and kitchens not so much open as wholly porous
(Evening Standard). Downstairs there is an in-house butcher breaking whole carcasses and a baker making the bread, and the kitchen makes the stracciatella under the raw prawns itself (Hot Dinners). The cooking is mar y montana, the sea-and-mountain style of Spain's hilly coastal towns, run on British produce that a head of sourcing named SongSoo Kim chases by county. One Michelin star arrived in the UK and Ireland 2024 guide, months after opening, and the restaurant still holds it.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the spider crab omelette, raw sobrasada on wood-fired toast with honey and guindilla, the beef sweetbreads, and whatever whole fish is over the coals. The Anglesey lobster caldereta serves three to five and Parry pushed it on Hot Dinners himself; order the wood-fired rice with it and scrape the crisp bits off the bottom.
- Avoid: treating this as a mains restaurant. Time Out's Joe Mackertich found the mains
merely fine
and the lamb chops short onsucculence and seasoning
(Time Out), while every reviewer agrees on the snacks and the grill work.
What locals & experts say
- Jimi Famurewa, Evening Standard (19 July 2023), five stars, written after eating there on the fourth day of trading:
There is a magnetic, tactile sensuousness to so much of the food that consistently took my breath away.
2 - Grace Dent, The Guardian (18 August 2023):
Buzzy, delicious, destination dining in the middle of Soho... further evidence that Tomos Parry really knows what he's doing,
and on the openings he has a habit of creating,a gasping hubbub that you cannot manufacture or pay for.
4 - Joe Mackertich, Time Out (17 August 2023), three stars, the dissent: "Beyond the excellence of those dishes though, there remains something massively, professionally adequate about Mountain."3
- William Sitwell, The Telegraph (August 2023), four stars, landing in the middle:
I was dragged up and down the mountain with doses of failure and success, but with its great service team, cheffy brains and good location, I feel this place will boom.
4 - Tom Kerridge, in the MICHELIN Guide's My London series (25 February 2026), picking where he goes:
It's perfect to just drop in and have a seat at the bar, but also to book as a special place to meet up with friends.
10 - Awards: one Michelin star, first awarded in the UK and Ireland 2024 guide (The Staff Canteen) and held in the 2026 London list. The Good Food Guide named it Best New Restaurant 2024 and rates it Very Good (The Good Food Guide). Seventh in the UK at the 2026 National Restaurant Awards, ahead of Brat at fiftieth.11
Good to know
- Where: 16-18 Beak Street, on the corner of Upper John Street, halfway between Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus.
- Timing: Monday to Saturday noon to 10.30pm, Sunday noon to 9.30pm.
- Booking: the dining room takes reservations for one to ten. The counter is held for walk-ins, in the venue's own words, which makes this a rare starred room you can chance on a weeknight.
- The bar: the basement runs classic cocktails, vermouths and a wine list put together by the Noble Rot team.
- Operator: Super 8 Restaurants, the small group co-founded by Ben Chapman that also runs Kiln one street away. Parry is chef, founder and co-owner rather than a hired hand, and the spend has gone into butchery, baking and fire.
- Sites: this page is Beak Street. BRAT at 4 Redchurch Street and BRAT x Climpson's Arch in London Fields are separate premises with their own rows, and the Michelin standing recorded here is Mountain's own.
- Hygiene: FSA rating 5, inspected 16 March 2026, with clean fives across hygiene, structure and confidence in management.9
Verdict
must-visit — Build the evening around it, and you can do that at short notice, because the counter is held for walk-ins and the venue says so in its own words. Parry cooks Welsh produce through Balearic and Basque mar y montana technique, which is a real bridge between two food cultures rather than a garnish: crab and sugar kelp from Car y Mor in West Wales, butter from Caws Teifi, sobrasada from one named Mallorcan farm, all of it going over two Gozney wood ovens in kitchens Jimi Famurewa called wholly porous. The capital went where a cook can see it, into whole-carcass butchery downstairs, an in-house bakery and cheese made on the premises. One Michelin star from the first guide after opening, held in 2026, plus the Good Food Guide's Best New Restaurant 2024. The dissent is honest and it is dated: Time Out's three stars and the Telegraph's mixed four both ran in August 2023, weeks after the doors opened and six months before the star.