Dalston, Japanese Restaurant Guide

“Every time is a different experience thanks to the ever changing menu” at this “imaginative and wonderful” Dalston venture. “The food really is a mix of European and Japanese influences” and served in a tasting menu format (either the 10-course ‘kaiseki’ or 4-course ‘omakase’) that’s “excellent, without feeling too fussy, and great value for money”. The “dark and moody interior” creates a “pared-back but buzzy atmosphere, which makes this a perfect pick for a special dinner”.

Chef Luke Findlay brings his ‘traditionally inauthentic’ cult ramen (using ingredients such as Parmesan cheese or Cumberland sausages) to a duo of functionally kitted-out venues. First honed as a supper club, the Dalston original opened in March 2000, and a Peckham spin-off in late 2022. Not a huge volume of feedback, but all good for the big-flavoured bowls that had The Independent’s Kate Ng hail “a perfectly imperfect take on fusion food” in January 2023.

On a site that was Rotorino (RIP), this year-old music venue (named for a jazz album) is from the brothers behind Hackney’s ‘Brilliant Corners’. It has yet to generate much in the way of survey feedback, but London needs more jazz diners; and its Japanese-inspired robata cuisine received a big shout out from the Guardian’s Grace Dent in November 2022, who found it be “far grander and ornately executed than it needs to be”.