Restaurants

By Guy Dimond

Aqua is brought to us, ‘concept’ and all, from an upmarket chain based in Hong Kong. It occupies the top floor of what used to be the Dickins & Jones building, sandwiched between Regent Street and Argyll Street (home of waffle stalls, teen shoppers and ‘Sister Act’).

Aqua’s entrance, complete with red velvet drapes, is on tacky Argyll Street. A doorman checks if you have a reservation (we did, but he’d not been told) and then sends you to the lift.

On the top floor, a gaggle of giggling girl greeters size you up as you leave the lift. It’s not the most professional of starts. But Aqua aims to be an upmarket fine dining destination, vying with the likes of Nobu or Zuma.

In many ways, it has fulfilled the brief. The series of rooms are decorated like smart, international hotel restaurants – smart, but not cutting-edge design.

There are two dining rooms, one – ‘Aqua Nueva’ – claiming inspiration from Spanish cocina nueva, the new wave of Spanish cooking, and other, ‘Aqua Kyoto’, inspired by Japan. There are also a few bars, and three large outdoor terraces, only used by smokers on our visit.

Curiously, the interior of Aqua Kyoto has a gaudy, Western-style, five-star hotel look, not at all like Japanese fine dining restaurants in Japan. A sushi counter sits sunken in the middle of the room, like the captain's bridge in the Starship Enterprise.

I visited at lunch. It serves only set lunches – no à la carte - that are fair value, and well-prepared by the Japanese chef – a mixed bento box for £15.95, plus the inevitable black cod with miso at £28.50. They'd pass muster in Japan - hardly surprising, as chef Shibuya Kenichi has only been outside of Japan of matter of weeks.

Service on this visit was a shambles though. Our oriental waitress knew barely a word of menu Japanese, and soy sauce - the essential and obvious condiment – was not brought (we had to ask for it). The staff managed to be in the way when not needed, then vanished when we did want their assistance. It was raining outside, so we were advised to not step out onto the balcony 'for health and safety reasons' (oh, please).
Then, I was overcharged, with two additional glasses of wine mysteriously appearing on the bill.

If you're more interested in a fair-priced set lunch in a glam setting than you are in polished service, this is worth considering. Especially if you don't want to stray far from Oxford Circus.

Time Out October 2009