The Sun & 13 Cantons.

The Sun & 13 Cantons

The kitchen is a launchpad, not a restaurant. Asma Khan cooked Darjeeling Express out of this Soho pub, Mandy Yin cooked Sambal Shiok here before she took Holloway Road, and Budgie Montoya cooked Sarap here (Palate Magazine).

Why go

The building is an 1882 gothic revival rebuild, Grade II listed under Historic England entry 1213696, and the name comes from the Swiss watch-making community that worked around Soho: Switzerland had 12 cantons then, so the local expats became the thirteenth (CAMRA West London). It is a Fuller's house, and it is keg only. What separates it from the rest of the estate is the tenancy model: the kitchen is handed to an outside chef for a stretch, and several of those chefs have gone on to open their own rooms. The most recent was Mamapen, Kaneda Pen's Khmer kitchen, London's only Cambodian restaurant while it ran; Pen came out of the nose-to-tail barbecue kitchen at Flank and the open-fire grill From The Ashes, and Palate Magazine's Amanda David wrote that cooking with fire and smoke are second nature as a result. Pen has moved on and the venue's Cambodian page is gone. The current resident is Tagine & Grill, from the Afuegoburger team, with head chef Yassir Chair cooking modern Moroccan over charcoal; he was born in Morocco, came to London at 20 for a master's degree, and says the cuisine is still underrated here (venue site). The Nudge expects him to hold the kitchen for about a year. The room itself is dark wood, high stools, bottle-green tiling with gold trim, large mirrors, a basement bar for private events, and, unusually for a Soho pub, air conditioning.

Order this / avoid

• Order: off the keg wall first. The venue calls it one of the best-stocked bars in Soho, we have rotating craft beer from independent breweries; with gluten free, vegan and alcohol free options. For food, take what the resident does best. Under Tagine & Grill that is the chargrilled chicken thigh with ras-el-hanout dressing, harissa-glazed halloumi kebabs with pomegranate and coriander, and king prawn tangier bastila cigars3. Check the website before you commit to a plan, because the menu belongs to whoever is currently in the kitchen.
• Avoid: coming for cask. CAMRA's West London branch record says flatly "Cask Ale not available," and describes the pub as "one of Fuller's central craft beer pubs with no cask ale." Also avoid a quiet evening here: the same record warns it is a "buzzing bar" and "likely to have loud music in the evenings."

What locals & experts say

• Amanda David, Palate Magazine (1 July 2025): on the pub's function, the pub has been an early platform for some of the city's most successful chefs and restaurants including Asma Khan with Darjeeling Express, Mandy Yin and Sambal Shiok, and Budgie Montoya's Sarap. On the room, The dining room is happily unfussy, exactly as you would hope and expect to find in a proper pub, although brightened considerably by mid-height lighting and large mirrors lining the walls. Her verdict on the Khmer BBQ chicken on the menu then: it's what every other flame-grilled chicken dish wants to be when it grows up.2
• Hattie Lloyd, The Nudge (updated 11 June 2026): Despite being part of the Fullers empire, The Sun and 13 Cantons manages to keep a level of individuality about it, due largely to the string of critically acclaimed food residencies that it's become known for. On the interior: feels like a good ol' fashioned British booza, but in the Ministry of Magic. Specifically we're talking dark wooden bar and high stools meets bottle green tiling, with gold trim.3
• CAMRA, West London branch (record dated 8 July 2026): the operational warning that matters most here: The pub has various food residencies for a few weeks at a time, ranging from gastro to street-food, so if you want to eat do check menu and times on the pub website first as food times vary according to the residency.1
• Local rec: none. Jeff's own note is that the Cambodian pop-up was here, which was Mamapen. REAL, and now historical.

Good to know

• The Cambodian kitchen has gone. Mamapen is no longer in residence: the venue's own Cambodian page returns a 404 and The Nudge described it in June 2026 as the most recent former resident. The homepage still advertises it, so do not trust that page.
• Timing: bar Monday to Friday noon to 11pm, Saturday noon to 11.30pm, Sunday 12.30pm to 8pm. Food under the current residency runs Monday 5pm to 9.30pm, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday noon to 2.30pm plus 5pm to 9.30pm, Wednesday noon to 2.30pm plus 5pm to 9pm, Saturday noon to 9.30pm, Sunday 1pm to 7pm. Those windows move with the tenant.
• Booking: walk in for a drink; the site takes table bookings for the residency.
• Groups: the basement bar is available for private events, from meetings to parties.
• Dietary: the only published statement is about drinks, and the venue's own words are "gluten free, vegan and alcohol free options" on the beer range. Food provision depends on the current kitchen, so ask. Nothing is published about cross-contamination.
• Comfort: it has aircon, which CAMRA thinks worth mentioning and which is genuinely rare in a listed Soho pub.
• Hygiene: FSA rating 4, inspected 11 July 2022 (FSA). That is the most recent inspection on the register, so read it as four years old.
• Getting there: 21 Great Pulteney Street, between Piccadilly Circus and Oxford Circus, a couple of minutes off Brewer Street.

Craft signals (a kitchen residency programme, and keg-only beer)

The evolution here runs through the kitchen rather than the cellar. CAMRA records the pub as one of Fuller's central craft houses with no cask ale at all, and separately notes that it runs a series of food residencies lasting a few weeks each, ranging from gastro to street food1. A rolling residency calendar is a programme in the strict sense, the same mechanism that makes Carousel an exemplar: the room is a platform and the cooking keeps changing hands. The beer is a fixed craft-keg lineup.

Jeff's take (his words)

• Note: "Cambodian popup here as well" REAL. That was Mamapen, and it has since left the pub.

Verdict

could-visit — The pub is a launchpad, and that is the reason to care about it. Asma Khan cooked Darjeeling Express here, Mandy Yin cooked Sambal Shiok here before Holloway Road, Budgie Montoya cooked Sarap here, and until recently Kaneda Pen ran London's only Cambodian kitchen out of the back. Right now it is Yassir Chair's Tagine & Grill doing charcoal Moroccan. So the food is a lottery with good odds, the room is an 1882 Grade II gothic revival with bottle-green tiling, and the beer is keg-only. Go when the resident is somebody you want to eat, and check the website first, because CAMRA's own branch tells you to.