Toklas.

Toklas

Toklas opened on 19 October 2021 in a Brutalist former car park off the Strand, and its own diners have scored it Average, then Very Good, and now a notch lower again in the year its chef left (Harden's).

Why go

The kitchen buys daily and publishes the menu the same way. The venue puts out a PDF titled Today's Menu alongside a separate pre-theatre sheet, and describes produce as sourced daily from a list of trusted suppliers (Toklas). Bread comes from the group's own bakery at number 9 on the same street, the same loaf several other London restaurants buy.

Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover, who built the Frieze art fair, opened it next door to their own offices with Martyn Lyons cooking, out of Spring, Moro and Ollie Dabbous's kitchens (Hot Dinners). Who is cooking now is genuinely unclear: The Caterer reported Chris Shaw as head chef in November 2023, Harden's credited Yohei Furuhashi through 2024 and 2025, and its 2026 edition reports Furuhashi gone to the Lavery. The terrace is the part people describe first. Around 80 covers planted by Miria Harris, pushed out over Surrey Street inside the 180 Strand block, with heaters and canopies making it usable roughly May to October. The bar opens at 5.30pm six nights and makes its cocktails, alcoholic and not, from cordials built out of fruit the bakery is already using.

Order this / avoid

• Order: the fried feta and the carrot dish, which survey regulars keep naming out of a menu that moves under them. Pasta, made in house. The mussel escabeche as a snack first. Sea bass crudo with tomatoes and bottarga. If you are eating before a show, take the pre-theatre set.
• Avoid: the rabbit saltimbocca if you are sensitive to salt, since regulars call it tender and very salty in the same breath. Don't count on the terrace outside summer. And read the wine list before you commit to it, because it runs natural and one national critic loathed it.

What locals & experts say

• William Sitwell, The Telegraph, October 2022, on the food: the menu was a thing of grace, poise, accomplishment and quite breathtaking flavour, executed perfectly apart from some soft almonds, and finished with fabulous cheese... and then the lightest, most brilliantly made lemon tart.3
• Sitwell, same review, on the wine: The whole list is a fog of natural, yellowy, stable-yard stinking atrocity. Every sniff and sip a disappointment.3
• Harden's diner survey, 2026 edition, food 3 of 5 at GBP 91 a head: carefully crafted, really imaginative and unusual dishes with a Mediterranean mojo, where you never know quite what to expect but it's invariably well executed. Its Top Tip is that the pre-theatre set menu is very good value, and its Top Menu Tips name the fried feta and carrot dishes and a top, subtle-flavoured mussel escabeche snack.2
• The same survey, on the chef: it will be interesting to see what effect the recent departure of chef, Yohei Furuhashi, to the Lavery has on Toklas. Food had scored 4 of 5 the year before.2
• The Good Food Guide, rating it Good: An oasis of calm, especially on a warm summer's day when a table on the wide, plant-filled terrace is highly prized.4
• No industry vote. The London chef votes hold 589 London picks across 91 venues and none of them names Toklas.

Good to know

• Where: 1 Surrey Street WC2R 2ND, inside the 180 Strand building. Temple station, or up from the river.
• Timing: service hours are not published on the venue's site. The bar runs from 5.30pm Monday to Saturday, and there is a pre-theatre menu, so this is a lunch and dinner room with an early-evening option.
• The terrace: roughly 80 covers, heated and canopied, comfortable about May to October. Tables outside can be booked and they will move you if the weather turns.
• Booking: through SevenRooms. Parties over 12 go through the event request form instead.
• Groups: 150 seated inside, 100 outside. Surrey Street has no residents, which is why events here can run late.
• Programme: occasional guest-chef dinners in the restaurant, plus wine tastings, talks and book launches. The bakery next door curates markets featuring other London bakeries.
• Hygiene: FSA rating 5, Westminster, inspected 8 August 2025, FHRSID 1392209, components 5/5/5.7
• Sites: two doors on one street, one company. This is the restaurant at number 1. The bakery at number 9 is a separate FSA registration, opened a month later, and is curated separately as toklas-cafe-and-bakery.
• Watch: the chef who took the diners' score to 4 of 5 has left for the Lavery, and the score dipped in the same edition. Still open, still recommended, worth a check before you build an evening on it.

Verdict

should-visit — Worth the detour, and go while the terrace is open. Toklas cooks a short Mediterranean menu off produce bought daily, with its own bakery at number 9 supplying bread that other London restaurants also buy. William Sitwell called the menu 'a thing of grace, poise, accomplishment and quite breathtaking flavour' and then said the natural-leaning wine list was 'a fog of natural, yellowy, stable-yard stinking atrocity', which is the most useful pair of sentences written about the place. Harden's regulars have it as a canteen for people who work nearby, praise 'carefully crafted, really imaginative and unusual dishes with a Mediterranean mojo', and rate the pre-theatre set as the value play. It is held at should-visit rather than higher for two reasons that pull the same way: the diners' food score fell from 4 to 3 this year, and the same edition reports the chef who built that score leaving for the Lavery. The terrace, hung out over Surrey Street opposite the ceramic front of the old Strand tube station, is genuinely one of the better rooms in central London and it is still not the reason to book.