Marcus Hale, Food & Drink Writer
A new Soho restaurant from the Super 8 orbit has landed with serious energy, bringing bold cooking, cross-cultural influences and a properly London sense of confidence.
London’s restaurant scene moves quickly, but every so often an opening cuts through because it feels like more than another smart new dining room. Impala, the new Soho restaurant reviewed by Grace Dent in The Guardian, looks like one of those places.
The restaurant comes with strong credentials. It is connected to the Super 8 group, known for acclaimed London restaurants including Brat, Mountain and Kiln, and is led by chef Meedu Saad, formerly of Kiln.
What makes Impala interesting is that it resists easy categorisation. According to The Guardian’s review, the menu draws on Egyptian, Turkish-Cypriot, Mediterranean and British influences, with dishes including bird’s tongue pasta with spiced oxtail, beef tartare with Tunisian harissa and langoustine kibbeh.
That mix feels very London: rooted in different food cultures, but not trying to flatten them into something predictable. Soho has always been one of the capital’s great restaurant neighbourhoods because it rewards places with a point of view. Impala appears to have one in abundance.
It also arrives during a particularly busy month for London openings. Time Out’s April restaurant round-up highlighted the scale of new launches across the city, while Hot Dinners pointed to around 30 new restaurants opening over the month.
In that context, a restaurant needs more than hype to stand out. Impala’s appeal seems to be its sense of personality: moody room, bold flavours, unusual combinations and a refusal to behave like a safe, polished, trend-led opening.
For London diners, that matters. The city has no shortage of beautiful restaurants, but the ones that shape the conversation tend to be those with a clearer creative pulse. Impala sounds like a place built for people who still want restaurants to surprise them.
It also reinforces Soho’s continuing role as one of London’s most exciting dining districts. Even as new openings spread across east, south and north London, Soho remains a place where ambitious chefs can still create a proper city moment.