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If a sheik with a taste for chinoiserie fell out of an episode of ‘Poirot’ and opened a restaurant, it would probably look a lot like Mayfair’s swanky Asian hotspot Sexy Fish. It’s a beautiful, large room with an inordinate amount of marble, soft lighting, giant fish sculptures and an impressive wall of running water. So far, so sexy.
Less sexy was waiting for half an hour for our cocktails to arrive. When they did they were a bit, well, missable. The Umami Martini looked incredible (and a piece of sashimi definitely beats an olive), but the excellently named Rice, Rice Baby was unpleasantly sweet. My advice? Stick with a good old glass of champagne.
The menu is ‘Asian fusion’, where cross-continental influences range from Thai to Japanese, with some Chinese and Korean flavours thrown in for good measure. The star dish? An incredible lobster salad. Light, fresh and coconutty, it tasted like a beach holiday on Ko Mak, and was surprisingly good value given its generous size. The punchier, meaty dishes were great too, with perfectly cooked, wonderfully peppery wings and great sticky ribs. But if you want delicate sashimi, you’d be better off emptying your wallet in a dedicated Japanese restaurant. And the puddings were more sweet – teeth-achingly so – than sexy. But this Mayfair hangout gets full marks for presentation – it’s a feast for the eyes as much as the tastebuds.