Some restaurants announce themselves with a sign. Kudu arrives with a pan of melted butter and a loaf, and the table goes quiet. For eight years that bread-and-butter opening was why people crossed the river to Peckham. In September 2025 the bread crossed it too, to a handsome corner of Marylebone.
A family business with an accent
Kudu began in Peckham in 2017, a restaurant founded by a husband and wife. Amy Corbin is Chris Corbin's daughter; he was half of the Corbin & King partnership behind The Wolseley and The Delaunay, and Kudu was her first restaurant. Patrick Williams, who is South African, ran the kitchen after working as a sous chef at Paradise Garage. The Peckham business grew into three, and in 2025 the couple folded all of it into one. On 16 September the restaurant opened at 7 Moxon Street, off the bottom of Marylebone High Street, where it describes itself as an open-fire braai restaurant cooking modern European food with a South African twist.
Peckham's loss was Marylebone's gain.
The room
The back area is moody, presided over by a bull bust, with mirrors and a louder volume, and booths and squishy armchairs elsewhere. Elsewhere are marble, rich wood, a mural of gazelles and hunters above the banquettes, warm reds and browns, art deco chandeliers, a mirrored wall at the back and wine caves downstairs. The open kitchen runs behind a long counter, with copper hoods and the flame at the front; ask for a seat facing it. Upstairs is Smokey Kudu, the cocktail bar. It works for dates, birthdays and clients alike.
What to order
Do not skip the Kudu bread. The butter changes: on one menu there was cultured butter with house-cured bacon, salty and fatty, a skillet of bacon bits beside fluffy bread. Another ran a Cape Malay butter with curried pickled shallots. Add Kalahari-spiced biltong, which you will want to take home, and oysters in tomato dashi.
Then the braai, the heart of the menu. The pork chop with monkey gland sauce, a South African steakhouse classic that is sweet, tangy and monkey-free, carried over from Peckham and still outstanding. The lamb Barnsley chop is thick, juicy and charred, with a drinkable tomato vierge. Cape Malay monkfish with green tomato and fennel gives a lighter option, while poussin with pastrami spice and nduja wears a thick chilli-crisp crust. Beef-fat fingerling potatoes are a highlight. For sharing there is a whole sea bass with zhug butter, or prime rib from ex-Parmesan dairy cows.
Pudding is theatre: the Kudu Kit Kat, with a marshmallow blowtorched at the table over chocolate mousse and kumquat. Blue cheese canelé with smoked maple is the grown-up answer.
The hedges, plainly: the Kit Kat looks better than it tastes, the goat's curd on the carrots is heavy, and the room is a little short of Peckham grit. Portions are generous, so pace yourself.
Drinks
The wine list leans South African, with names such as Vilafonté and De Toren, including a Stellenbosch Merlot. At Smokey Kudu the classics take a South African turn: the Moxon Street Sour, the Saffa Rita and a Braai Negroni. It stays open until midnight.
A neighbourhood restaurant that outgrew its neighbourhood. Order the bread, then sit near the fire.
- The vibe
- Warm marble-and-wood braai room, open kitchen, bar upstairs.
- The food
- Kudu bread and butter, pork chop with monkey gland sauce, lamb Barnsley chop.
- The drink
- South African reds; Braai Negroni upstairs at Smokey Kudu.
- A tip
- Ask for a seat facing the kitchen, or the moody back area.
