Soho’s got a problem. It’s packed with restaurants, but half of them are designed to catch tourists once and never see them again. Overpriced menus, mediocre food, and locations chosen for footfall rather than quality. If you don’t know the area, it’s easy to end up somewhere deeply average while the good spots sit three streets over, quietly serving people who actually live here.
The difference between tourist traps and local favourites isn’t always obvious. Both have busy dining rooms and decent Google reviews. But locals know which places are worth returning to and which ones survive purely on location.
How to Spot a Tourist Trap
There are tells. Menus with photos of every dish usually signal trouble. Staff aggressively trying to pull you inside from the pavement is another red flag. Prices that seem weirdly high for what you’re getting, especially near Leicester Square or Piccadilly Circus, almost always mean you’re paying for location rather than food.
Tourist traps aren’t necessarily bad, they’re just optimised for people who won’t come back. The food’s acceptable enough that you won’t complain, but forgettable enough that you wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.
Local spots operate differently. They need repeat customers, which means the food has to be consistently good and the prices have to make sense for regular visits.
Where Soho Locals Actually Eat
Locals gravitate towards places that have been around long enough to prove themselves. ICCO Pizza’s been on Greek Street since 1999, which in Soho terms makes it practically ancient. You don’t survive 25 years in central London by ripping people off or serving rubbish food.
The setup’s straightforward: order at the counter, watch your pizza being made, eat it fresh. No tablecloths, no waiters hovering, no inflated prices to cover excessive overheads. It’s the kind of place you pop into for lunch between meetings or grab dinner from on your way home.
Prices start at £6.50 for a Margherita, which immediately separates it from the tourist-focused spots charging £15 for the same thing.
The Repeat Customer Test
Here’s a simple way to gauge whether somewhere’s genuinely good: would you eat there twice in one week? Tourist traps fail this test because they’re designed for one-time visits. Local spots pass it because they’re built around regularity.
ICCO gets a mix of everyone: students from nearby universities, office workers grabbing quick lunches, bar staff finishing late shifts, and people who’ve been coming here for years because it’s reliable. That variety is usually a good sign. If a place only attracts one type of customer, it’s probably optimised too narrowly.
What Locals Value
Locals care about different things than tourists. Tourists want atmosphere and Instagram moments. Locals want food that’s good, fast, and priced fairly because they’re eating here regularly, not once during a weekend trip.
Speed matters when you’ve got 45 minutes for lunch. Consistency matters when you’re choosing where to eat three times a week. And value matters when you’re paying London rent and can’t afford to drop £20 on every meal.
ICCO nails these basics. The pizza’s ready in about 10 minutes. It tastes the same whether you visit on Monday or Saturday. And you can eat well for under a tenner, which in Soho feels increasingly rare.
The Halal Factor
One thing that makes ICCO stand out is the fully halal menu. It’s not advertised loudly, but it quietly makes the place accessible to a chunk of London’s population who otherwise have limited options in Soho.
Locals appreciate inclusivity. Tourist traps tend to stick with the safest, most generic offerings because they’re chasing mass appeal. Places that actually serve their community think harder about who lives and works nearby.
Late-Night Local Haunts
The best indicator of a local spot is whether it stays busy after the theatre crowds leave. Tourists don’t stick around Soho past 10 PM, they head back to hotels or move on to the next thing. But locals, especially those working in hospitality, need food late.
ICCO’s open until 3 AM on weekends, and the late-night crowd looks completely different from the lunchtime one. Bar staff, musicians, night shift workers, people who know Soho after dark. These aren’t tourists, they’re people who live here.
Avoiding the Obvious
The worst tourist traps cluster around Leicester Square and the main drags. The best local spots are usually one or two streets off the main path. Greek Street sits right in the middle of Soho but doesn’t get the same tourist saturation as, say, Old Compton Street or Wardour Street.
Locals know this. They’ll walk an extra three minutes to avoid paying tourist prices or dealing with crowds that don’t know how to navigate a busy restaurant.
What Makes Somewhere Worth Returning To
It’s not complicated. Good food, fair prices, no pretension. Places that treat regulars well rather than assuming every customer is temporary. Spots that have been around long enough to prove they’re not just chasing trends.
Soho’s full of great restaurants if you know where to look. The trick is ignoring the ones designed to catch you once and finding the ones locals actually use. Want to eat where Soho locals go? ICCO Pizza’s been serving fresh, affordable pizza on Greek Street since 1999. Visit us here.
