Evening Standard
David Ellis claimed to be the first newspaper critic to review this veteran Berkeley Square Japanese (est. 1973), despite its being favoured by entertainment royalty (thank-you notes are on display from George Clooney, Steven Spielberg, Cher and Mick Jagger) – not to mention its regular listing in the Harden’s guide.
With an “everyman anonymity” from the outside, inside it is “the Wilton’s of Japanese restaurants: old school and hush-hush… entirely without embellishment”. The cooking met with David’s approval, with miso soup that “felt like a tonic to all of life’s ills”, aubergine “as gooey as a rom-com and twice as comforting”, and sushi “perhaps as good as any I’ve eaten”.
Places like this are often fearfully expensive, he noted, “but Ikeda can be done carefully; we left at £175, preferring it to £420-a-head Sushi Kanesaka. In that sense, it felt like good value.”
David Ellis - 2025-04-13