Blackfriars, Japanese Restaurant Guide

These noodle bars are “great if you need a quick and satisfying lunch” – either in the original Soho branch, which celebrates its 15th anniversary this year, or its offshoots in the City’s Bloomberg Arcade and Hackney. They specialise in udon noodles, which are fatter than ramen and served in a more refined and traditional Japanese dashi stock.

This 15-strong London noodle chain (now with branches in Brighton, Birmingham and Bristol) is “a good stand-by” – perhaps it’s “not as good as some of its competitors”, but it is widely seen as “good value”: in particular “the lunch-time meal deal” is a winner.

Spanning the eighth and ninth floors of what was once the Daily Telegraph’s Fleet Street HQ, this new pan-Asian fusion concept will major in Japanese cuisine – with a dedicated sushi counter and open robata grill – but also with Thai and Chinese dishes. The ninth-floor rooftop terrace will become a bar and lounge complete with a panorama of the nearby cityscape.