Harden's survey result
Summary
“An oldie but a goodie” – Nobu Matsuhisa‘s first restaurant in Europe when it opened in 1997 on the first floor of a Park Lane hotel remains “a truly special place” that still offers “the same excellence after all these years”. It’s “expensive” (always has been), “doesn’t have the best decor” (a long-running complaint), “but it hands-down serves some of the best Japanese food in London”, from a menu of Nikkei-fusion dishes including the signature miso black cod that spawned a thousand imitators.
Summary
“Still the best Nobu for food in my opinion” – many “superb” meals are still reported at Nobu Matsuhisa’s first London outpost: the first floor of a boutique hotel on Park Lane (famous, in part, for Boris Becker once having fathered a child here in between courses in a cupboard off the main dining room). “The original black cod is definitely better than the many rip offs that abound” and its mix of sushi, tacos, steak, raw seafood and other luxurious Nikkei bites inspires uniformly high ratings. “The uninviting room undeniably needs a make-over”… but people have been saying that almost since it first opened.
Summary
“Definitely not as fashionable as it once was… the décor is now a bit old hat… but the food at this Nobu still has the edge” – the original London branch of Nobu Matsuhisa’s famous international chain is “still the place to go if you like Japanese fusion-style cuisine”, and “if you ignore the prices then the rest is simply wonderful!” Perhaps realising that they need to work harder now that the A-list crowd has moved on, service is often “spot on” too, nowadays.
Summary
“It’s been a rockstar forever!!!!”, according to dedicated fans of this still-famous haunt (where Boris Becker became a father in a broom cupboard back in the day). London’s original Nikkei venture sits on a stylishly minimal first floor overlooking Park Lane and is the best-rated member of the group nowadays. Perhaps, when the going gets tough, the tough get going, as its ratings strengthened notably this year, winning praise for “very delicate and finely balanced” Japanese-Peruvian dishes of a quality and value closer to when it first opened. The environment is “very noisy, not helped by the loud music and hard surfaces”… but, for diehards, that’s the whole point.
For 33 years we've been curating reviews of the UK's most notable restaurant. In a typical year, diners submit over 50,000 reviews to create the most authoritative restaurant guide in the UK. Each year, the guide is re-written from scratch based on this survey (although for the 2021 edition, reviews are little changed from 2020 as no survey could run for that year).
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Restaurant details
Prices
 Drinks |
|
|---|---|
| Wine per bottle | £66.00 |
| Filter Coffee | £6.00 |
 Extras |
|
|---|---|
| Service | 15.00% |
| Number of Diners: | |
| Required Time: | |
Opening hours
| Monday | 12 pm‑2:15 pm, 6 pm‑9:30 pm |
| Tuesday | 12 pm‑2:15 pm, 6 pm‑9:30 pm |
| Wednesday | 12 pm‑2:15 pm, 6 pm‑9:30 pm |
| Thursday | 12 pm‑2:15 pm, 6 pm‑9:30 pm |
| Friday | 12 pm‑2:15 pm, 6 pm‑9:30 pm |
| Saturday | 12 pm‑2:30 pm, 6 pm‑10:30 pm |
| Sunday | 12:30 pm‑2:30 pm, 6 pm‑10 pm |
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