London's top 50 restaurants: Japanese
Whether you're craving ramen, sushi or something more substantial, here's our guide to London's best Japanese restaurants
Modern Japanese food fuses the best of classic Nippon tuck with Western-style innovation. Here are the places to try the new wave. Do you agree with the choices? Use the comments box below or tweet your suggestions.
Martin Daly
Dinings
- Rated as: 4/5
- Price band: 3/4
- Critics choice
This tiny Japanese restaurant, set in a beautiful Georgian townhouse, is a place we recommend for a treat. The contemporary take on Japanese cuisine means small plates are rechristened as ‘Japanese hot tapas’ and nigiri are topped with salsas, truffle and jelly cubes of ponzu (a citrus-tinged soy sauce) – to delicious effect. Dishes are immaculately styled, yet presentation is always trumped by flavour; slivers of lightly seared rosy duck breast served with a shiso salsa and ponzu sauce looks as divine as it tastes. It’s no surprise, then, that a meal here doesn’t come cheap.
When to go: With some fashionable friends in tow – these plates were meant for grazing.
What to have: Tickle your tastebuds with the delightful ‘tar tar’ chips – like mini tacos filled with crabmeat or scallop, salmon and tuna tartare.
- 22 Harcourt Street, W1H 4HH
Jonathan Perugia
Koya
- Rated as: 5/5
- Price band: 1/4
- Critics choice
The Japanese ethos of devoting a restaurant to one dish or ingredient is admirable, yet rarely seen in this city. The fact that Soho would become home to a highly authentic udon-ya (a place specialising in udon – a thick, springy wheat noodle) was perhaps unthinkable even a year ago. The noodles are freshly made daily, utilising a traditional foot-kneading method to achieve that desirable chewy texture, and the broths are deeply flavoured with three types of dried fish. Udon dominates the menu, but the small plates (such as slow-cooked pork belly, or lotus root salad) are excellent as side orders, too. Chilled tap water is free, the staff are sweet and while seating might be cramped and the queues inevitable, a bowl of these noodles is always worth the wait.
When to go: All year round – opt for cold noodles in a chilled dipping sauce in hot weather, or a bowl of piping hot udon in broth when you’re chilled to the bone. Always go off-peak.
What to have: All variations are excellent, but none are complete without that silky smooth slow-cooked egg (onsen tamago) to go on top.
- 49 Frith Street, W1D 4SG
Roka
- Rated as: 5/5
- Critics choice
Zuma’s little sister has no trouble standing up for itself. The glass-fronted façade gives passers by a peek of the chefs at work preparing robata-grilled goodies. As well as all things charcoal-cooked their raw dishes are also worth exploring like ruby red tuna sashimi. If you’re in need of a stiff drink, head down to the Shochu Lounge bar in the basement.
When to go: It’s a popular spot for media schmoozing, but also suited to a special occasion when you don’t mind parting with a fair few pennies.
What to have: The robata-grilled scallops with wasabi cream made it into our 100 Best Dishes in London.
- 37 Charlotte Street, W1T 1RR
Yashin Sushi
- Rated as: 5/5
- Price band: 3/4
- Critics choice
London may not be lacking high-end sushi restaurants, but Yashin’s offerings manage to bridge a gap between quality and creativity. Like some sushi bars in Japan, soy sauce and wasabi are not offered at the table for diners to use as they please; instead, the itamae (sushi chef) crafts and seasons each piece differently, to bring out certain qualities of every (shell)fish. Here, a fatty piece of salmon nigiri may be lightly blowtorched to bring out its flavoursome oils, which is then cut through with cubes of tangy, citruous ponzu jelly. Or a sweet milky scallop may benefit from the gentle heat of a jalapeño salsa. The combinations are exciting (tuna and gorgonzola, anyone?), but never reckless. This is the place to truly experience omakase – that is, to leave everything in the chef’s (very capable) hands.
When to go: When you can’t take another day of fridge-cold supermarket sushi.
What to have: Sushi, naturally, but don’t miss its brilliant own-made silken tofu.
- 1A Argyll Road, W8 7DB
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