Looking into the restaurant at Impala
So this is the restaurant everyone's talking about right now?
It is. You may remember a similar thing happening with Super8's other restaurant, Mountain, when that opened three years ago. A similar frenzy has surrounded the opening of this, their fifth restaurant (they also have Kiln, Brat and Smoking Goat).
And who's the chef?
Chef and co-owner Meedu Saad is running the show here. He's the former head chef of Kiln (he's now executive chef there), and the menu at this, his first solo venture, reflects his culinary heritage. So it draws from everything from childhood trips to his father's home in Egypt to an upbringing in North London - his first job was working at a Turkish Cypriot restaurant on Green Lanes.
Chef Meedu Saad talks us through the menu
Where is it?
You'll find the restaurant at the top end of Dean Street (part of the building used to be a car park and you can still see some remnants of that in the building), so the nearest tube would be Tottenham Court Road. The space inside was designed by Super 8 co-founder Benjamin Chapman and designer Dan Preston, who wanted the room to "recall the energy of Friday markets in Cairo colliding with a Soho bar". If you've been to Mountain, you'll feel right at home here.
Where should we meet friends for a drink first?
There is a separate bar here at Impala, but if you want to meet elsewhere, then you've got The Toucan just around the corner and you're not far from Three Sheets Soho.
Where should we sit?
If there are two of you, then the best seats in the house without question are up at the kitchen counter. There are just four seats here and they place you right in the heart of the action. Although be warned, this does also also mean you're sitting right by the grill, so don't come in wearing a big jumper. You could also take a counter seat in front of the wood oven, or find a table in the main dining room - all of these are still great options.
The view from the kitchen counter seats
So what kind of food are we talking about?
To some extent, the menu here defies classification. What almost every dish does have in common is being cooked either in the wood-fired oven or the enormous charcoal grill, with the flames tempered by huge feathered fans wielded by the chefs. The produce used makes the most of connections with some of the UK's best producers, whether that's Matt Chatfield down in Cornwall with his gorgeous cull yaw mutton or duck from top Cornish butcher Philip Warren.
But really, the dishes here feel so very London-coded, taking inspiration from other countries but distilling them down and serving them up in a way you could only find in this city. The best way to explain it to you is to show you what we ate, as we gave the menu a good going-over.
Kibbeh of langoustine and a yogurt coated wheet wrapped in perilla leaves (£7 each)
Aisha Baladi (£6) - there are two breads on the menu, the other's a honey and olive oil bread, but these rustic-looking rolls were pillowy soft inside and came with some olive oil and great Tunisian harissa for dipping.
Baby kadu radishes with wasabina and anchovies (£9) - gorgeous crunchy radishes given a bit of extra kick courtesy of the wasabina greens.
Raw turbot with mashua root, dressed with garum and wild honey £18) - a game changer of a crudo dish made from the turbot you can see hanging up in the kitchen.
Hot grilled squid salad with cumin seed, olives and Nabeul harissa (£16), apparently a late addition to the menu but already popular with the kitchen team, and we can see why.
Sheftalia of Tamworth pork wrapped in caul fat and grilled (£12) - these heavenly Cypriot sausages 100% need to be on your must-try list.
Grilled short rib from Philip Warren (£23) finished with three different kinds of peppercorn and a bit of rosemary oil. The kitchen had a whole drawer of these kebabs, something we'd much prefer to a tiramisu drawer (which we've seen elsewhere).
Most of the above dishes would fall into the small and medium-sized category, and then there are three sharing mains, of which we tried the following two.
Sweetbreads with a salad of salted onions and pickled green chillies (£36) - another absolute must-have. Our waiter said the onions reminded her of the onions you'd get with a funfair burger, in the best possible way. They were the perfect foil to the rich sweetbreads.
Duck roasted in molasses with fig sauce (£68) - bound to be one of the signature dishes of Impala. The ducks are stuffed with a black lime spice paste and then roasted slowly over the fire. Make sure to pair this with the pilaf with barberries (£10).
Room for dessert?
After that little lot you'd think not, but this would be a huge mistake. There is only one dessert on the menu at Impala, and it's a dish of such perfection we can only urge you to leave room for it.
Date and pistachio custard tart (£12) - utter perfection of a tart, a little bit salty, a bit sweet and a perfect base. This will be the dish to beat for our dessert of 2026.
What's on the drinks list?
The wine list that Penny Vine and Martina Larnach have put together is a fantastically individual list split into categories like Great to Drink under £65 and Trailblazers and Appellation Rulebreakers. Our volcanic white from Porto Santo winemaker Antonio Macanita (£110) was a blindingly good bottle. As for the entry-level pricing, it's £45 for a bottle of Bourgogne Aligoté or £35 for a 500ml carafe of their wine on tap.
We'd also recommend trying the cocktails, based on the two we had.
Left to right: House martini (£12.50), one of the best balanced gin martinis we've had in an age, this just needs to be a lot colder to make our all-time martini hitlist. Chill rating 6.5. On the right was their banana rum punch (£16), which we can also highly recommend.
Overall thoughts:
If you had somehow thought that the crazy hype that had built up over Impala couldn't be matched by the experience, then you couldn't be more wrong. Every once in a while, we give you a strong recommendation to book a new restaurant before it gets so crazy popular you can't get in for love nor money. Impala is that trailblazing restaurant right now.
The food defies pigeonholing, and there's nothing remotely like it in London. Book as soon as you can. You can thank us later.
More about Impala
Where is it? 14 Dean St, London W1D 3RS
How to book? Book online.
Find out more: Visit their website or follow them on Instagram @impala.soho.
Hot Dinners dined as guests of Impala. Prices correct at time of publication.
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