“Stunning” cuisine – highlighting a ‘robata’ grill which creates “the most wonderful flavours” – takes centre stage at these “exciting” Japanese operations, whose “cool” styling helps create a “great buzz”; NB: the Fitzrovia original (which has a “must-do” basement bar) significantly outclasses the newer Canary Wharf branch.
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Bringing his habitual skill to the restaurant reviewing lark, the Times’s man spends much of his critique disparaging an establishment which turns out not to be the one he had intended to visit at all. This leaves him space not to say much more than that the new Canary Wharf oupost of Roka “was excellent… Given the limitations of the site, the place is very pretty, very golden, very modern. And it was full of all sorts of glamorous people, lots of drop-dead wives of Russian billionaires and the editor of the Daily Mirror”. The food was “well executed” too.
David Sexton (26th November 2009)
2/5 stars
The critic – not the greatest fan of upmarket restaurants, it has to be said – weights the new Canary Wharf branch of Roka against the Wagamama formula, and can’t quite convince himself that the price premium for the former is justified. “At Roka, the food is better quality, more adventurous and authentic, and prepared from much more expensive ingredients. You get fair value for money from the entertainment experience as a whole too. Still, I’d just as soon go to Wag.”
Charmaine Mok (26th November 2009)
3/5 stars
The rapport prix-qualité seems to be an issue weighing on critics mind on visits to the new Canary Wharf branch of the Knighsbrige oriental. “We’d gladly return for the food”, says the lady from TO, “[b]ut for the price you pay for the privilege of eating here, the service had better sharpen up quick.
Giles Coren (4th January 2010)
David Sexton (26th November 2009)
Charmaine Mok (26th November 2009)
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