Dinings

Time Out says

Thu Jul 26 2012

No one comes to this bunker-in-a-townhouse for airy spaces or pretty decor; Dinings lives or dies by what emerges from ex-Nobu chef Masaki Sugisaki’s Latin-skewed kitchen. You can usually find space at the ground-floor sushi counter, but you’ll need to book for the little basement. Exclusive, cosy or claustrophobic? That depends on your views about brutalist concrete and the audibility of everyone’s conversation.

Dinings’ characteristic delectable titbits don’t come cheap – epitomised by tiny ‘tar-tar chips’ (potato crisps cradling toppings of, for example, chopped raw tuna on jalapeño cream, or salmon and spicy miso) at £3-£4 per delicious crunch. Staff and customers generally hail from the West, while the globetrotting menu runs to char siu pork, Jersey Royals, fiddlehead fern, truffle, foie gras and Korean spice alongside tuna, salmon and the renowned wagyu beef sushi. It makes for a disorientating read. Tender, charcoal-fragrant ‘Santa Barbara shrimp’ was a highlight, but wood pigeon intrigued then frustrated: grilled rare and quartered, it was tricky to chew off the bone and tasted of little. There are broadened horizons for dessert too, with the classy likes of balsamic vinegar and mirin ice-cream with still-hot strawberry tempura.