Soseki

Press Reviews (3)

• Fay Maschler (18th February 2009)
  1/5 stars
  
  The review doesn't get off to the most flying start, with Ms Maschler narked at having to pay full price for her meal at this city Japenese, when she could have had it for half the price. The food, we learn, would have only been “more or less acceptable” at the discounted price. “The attributes you hope for in Japanese food — delicacy, artistry, history, soulfulness, precision, strangeness, umami — were in short supply.” She does, however, praise the restaurant's interior, which “unfolds as a happy colourful revelation culminating in some private rooms on stilts like Japanese tree houses”.
• Marina O'Loughlin (8th October 2008)
  3/5 stars
  
  “Soseki, twinkling seductively under the lowering armpit of the Gherkin, is perfectly lovely, one of the most beautiful new restaurants I've visited in a long time. Like many restaurants in Tokyo or Kyoto, it looks very much like any old faceless modern block from the outside but climb the open-tread stairs and you'll find magic.” The food is a touch up-and-down though, and the ethical fish sourcing policy has a downside: “buying the whole catch from individual fishermen has its inevitable downside. You get what you get.”
• Charmaine Mok (2nd October 2008)
  3/6 stars
  
  This City newcomer, near the Gherkin, is “one of the few restaurants in London that can lay claim to serving kaiseki-style dishes – that is, Japanese haute-cuisine”, says the critic, and “[a]ny form of kaiseki cuisine puts the greatest of chefs to the test”. “But there were no real fireworks [here]… In fact, we struggled to find something that sets the food here apart from numerous other Japanese eateries in the capital.”