About Hoppers
Hoppers opened on Frith Street in Soho in 2015 as JKS Restaurants' Sri Lankan concept and has since expanded to Marylebone and King's Cross. The Soho original is still the strongest of the group: a narrow, tile-heavy room with counter seating along one wall and a queue outside on most weekends.
The menu centres on the titular hoppers (bowl-shaped pancakes made from fermented rice and coconut) and stringhoppers (steamed noodle-nests), served with a rotating set of Sri Lankan and south-Indian kari — black-pork, lamb-shank, bone-marrow-varuval — that are among the most flavour-intense dishes in central London at the price point. The short bar list leans toward arrack-based cocktails.
Pricing is deliberately restrained — a full meal for two with drinks rarely exceeds £75 — and the queue-plus-walk-in model means the restaurant retains the informal energy it opened with. Bookings for larger tables are possible; bar-seat walk-ins remain the house style.
Best Occasion Fit
Hoppers is a first-date restaurant that tells your date you know food. The regional specificity (Sri Lankan, not generic South Asian), the Frith Street queue, and the JKS pedigree combine into a choice that reads correctly to anyone who follows London dining. Equally strong as a solo-diner counter spot.
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