Moi might look like a high-end Rainforest Cafe and smell like a Totnes candle shop, but this foliage-heavy temple to sushi and woodsmoke is making a serious attempt at the title of Soho’s most important restaurant opening of 2025.
A huge space that gets bigger the deeper you delve, Moi is all about Japanese food made with primo British ingredients, and filling up the bellies of hundreds of people per night to the sounds of the Velvet Underground and assorted jazz funk greats. On the street-level dining room (there’s also a sprawling basement complete with the ubiquitous ‘listening bar’), talented head chef Nick Tannett – formerly senior sous at Endo at the Rotunda – whips up modern and traditional takes on sushi, skewers, tataki and sashimi in a kitchen so open that he might as well take his apron off and join you at your table.
This is bread with main character energy
Of course, with prices like this you’d expect greatness. It’s almost £50 for a small plate of seared A5 wagyu nigiri, and some meaty bluefin toro taku temaki isn’t much cheaper. A gooey sea trout tartare chu maki brushed with a glossy and creamy yuzukosho emulsion is the best of the bunch, but it’s the small plates where Moi steps into its own (and decides not to whack your wallet quite as brutally).
Thick and fleshy mounds of tuna tataki folded like t-shirts in a branch of Cos, and sitting in a pool of zingy grapefruit liquor are exceptional, the sweet and tart sauce so addictive we have to ask for a spoon (why it doesn’t come with one we’ll never know). And the dish of the night is also the best value; £12 for a base camp-sized mound of smoked cod’s roe cut through with an explosion of house-made Lao Gan Ma chilli sauce and served with hot, fluffy and fairground-worthy fried and steamed doughnut-style buns. This is bread with main character energy. Great too is a fried potato cake topped with devon crab, a kind of crispy rice-confit-potato hybrid.
Of the mains, whoppers all, we stick to a mega XXL scallop in a rich koji butter – fine, but unmemorable following the fluffy buns – and a deep bowl of duck dumplings in bone broth that glistens with wasabi duck fat. It’s the perfect mix of wholesome and cardiologist-baiting.
Moi is undoubtedly great, but to do it right you’ll need to accept its Mayfair-style pricing.
The vibe Big-ticket Soho scenester dining.
The food Sushi, Japanese-style small plates and loads of meat on the grill.
The drink Innovative cocktails, such as Red Egg Plant - with apricot, gin, ash oil and tomato consomme, as well as a serious sake and a lengthy wine list.
Time Out tip The smoked cod’s roe and fried buns are a must-order.