Soho, Japanese Restaurant Guide

2022 Review: “Our daughters love this restaurant – especially the cubed steak and iceberg lettuce!”. This manifestly cool Soho three-year-old offers sushi and sashimi as well as a wide range of fish and meat from the robata grill.

With “clever”, “good-quality Japanese food” – in particular the “excellent, if relatively expensive, sushi” – and “busy, competent service”, these “fun, stylish and friendly” Scandi-minimal venues are “always buzzing”. Founded in Copenhagen by a pair of Danish-Japanese brothers more than 30 years ago, the company came under new ownership in 2024 with big expansion plans, and unveiled two times F1 champion Fernando Alonso as a major shareholder in April 2025. Recent London openings include a “huge new site” in Islington and Battersea Power Station.

“Delicious ramen with rich home-made broth” draws a steady crowd to these “quick, casual” joints “with a fun classic rock soundtrack”; and whose “great noodles are very consistent across their branches” (there are now seven across the capital). Top Menu Tip – “bao bun specials are good too, and great value”.

“Sometimes it just has to be ramen”, and this group from Japan Centre owner Tak Tokumine provides noodles and broth that are “consistent, quick”, “high-quality and very reasonably priced” – “service isn’t amazing but the food makes up for it”. The 12-hour tonkotsu pork broth is a speciality of Hakata, Tak’s home district of Fukuoka city on the island of Kyushu.

“Well priced” Japanese dishes make this small, no-frills 26-year-old chain a useful option, whether for a “quick pre-theatre visit” when in town or in one of the more far-flung branches (Catford or Brentwood), where “decent quality sushi is found in a local high street for the first time”. Top Tip – “the delicious honey tea”.

2024 Review: Yuya Kikuchi’s no-frills, very personal, small Soho six-year-old inspired little feedback this year, although we have received rave reviews in the past, particularly about the sushi. You can eat quite cheaply here, but aficionados of Japanese cuisine regularly go nuts for his £120, 18-course omakase. The FT’s Tim Hayward was one such in February 2023, declaring it “the best Japanese food in London” where “the chef’s attention to his ingredients is quite staggering… his craft skills second-to-none”. We have never had any complaints, but read Tripadvisor reviews if you are at all sensitive to poor service…

“Well worth the trip to Soho” – Victor Garvey’s California-inspired venue inspires high praise for modern American cuisine that’s “innovative, but without gimmicks”, centred around a ten-course tasting menu for £159 per person that provides “a brilliant balance of flavours”, all matched with “interesting” wines with splendid advice available (“had one of the tastiest wine flights and the sommelier adjusted it depending on our tastes, with some great American wines that I would never otherwise have tried”). And it’s a handsomely decorated place too. Just one thing: while acknowledging its all-round excellence, 1 in 5 reporters nevertheless considers it to be “overpriced”. Top Menu Tip – “the devilled egg is special”.

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.

2023 Review: With its outdoor rooftop terraces over central London near Regent Street, this Hong Kong-owned Japanese joint (a sibling of more famous Aqua Shard) makes a “romantic” location – “even a touch exotic” – to dine on “lovely food” which “looks as good as it tastes”. “The rent must be pretty steep, presumably explaining why prices are very high too”.

“Love the udon, sitting at the single long counter” – Japan’s most refined fast-food noodle option (whose popularity dates from the early Edo period 400 years ago), is showcased at this 15-year-old Soho fixture and its satellites in the City’s Bloomberg Arcade and Hackney. “Best to go at an off-peak time to avoid the queue”.

“Sometimes it just has to be ramen”, and this group from Japan Centre owner Tak Tokumine provides noodles and broth that are “consistent, quick”, “high-quality and very reasonably priced” – “service isn’t amazing but the food makes up for it”. The 12-hour tonkotsu pork broth is a speciality of Hakata, Tak’s home district of Fukuoka city on the island of Kyushu.

Ten years ago, Matsuhiro Araki broke the glass ceiling of London menu pricing, when he opened this 9-seater in Mayfair, paving the way for the top-tier Japanese omakase restaurants that now dominate the upper price points of the capital’s dining scene. In 2019, Mr Araki packed his bags, leaving his daughter Manae Araki and protégé Marty Lau in charge, since which time – not helped by Michelin steadfastly ignoring the establishment – interest in it has dwindled. Support in our annual diners’ poll has remained steady in this time, with nothing but praise for the all-round experience: an omakase at £310 per person. That said, there were more complaints about its pricing this year.

2023 Review: This “wonderful Japanese noodle shop just off of Regent Street” is modelled on the ‘yokocho’ alleyways of old Tokyo, its retro 1970s theme lending itself well to pedestrianised Heddon Street. There’s “great-tasting ramen with regular specials” and it “can be busy”. Launched two years ago by the Japan Centre team, it also has branches in Panton Street, Soho, and Westfield Shepherd’s Bush.

“Kudos to the chef” – Seamus Sam, who arrived in mid 2024 and is maintaining the culinary renown of this funky 12-seater in the cellar of Layo & Zoë Pasking’s period pub on the fringe of Chinatown, where he delivers a five-course menu for £135 per person. By all accounts it’s “just a wonderful experience” with “extremely interesting cooking” and “some intriguing wine pairings”, all delivered by “excellent staff”. “Not one for claustrophobics” perhaps, but most reporters find its style “lovely and intimate”.

“A reliable option for Japanese food on a budget” – this chain’s “functional decor” “looks and feels authentic”, while the “great, light tempura is always a good indicator of quality” and the sushi and sashimi tend to be “so much better than average”. Service can be “swift”, even “rushed”, and the venues “noisy” and “crowded because of the exceptional value” – but they’re “deservedly popular to eat in or take away”. Top Menu Tip – they sometimes have sea urchin, a real delicacy.

2023 Review: This “tasty” and fun Soho side project from the Bone Daddies group sounds like a post-modern culinary joke – a western take on a Japanese take on western cuisine! It started out as a pop-up, but proved popular enough to stick around on a permanent basis, serving hits from Korean fried wings and tuna tacos to kinako French toast with soft-serve ice cream.

This Soho venue lacks the international pedigree of some of its flashier Mayfair rivals and operates in a much more approachable style (with sushi masterclasses and regular posts of delighted guests on its Insta). Sushi aficionados and purists should maybe look elsewhere, but those less familiar with Japanese cuisine seem really to warm to its offering under chef Nobusama (who joined in late 2024), acclaiming it a great-value introduction to omakase dining. This is most evident at lunch, with options at £40 and £70 per person – in the evening the £100 and £150 per head options are also relatively affordable, but by the time you get to the £250 per person blow-out there is almost certainly a higher-quality experience to be found at the same price elsewhere.

On the Soho site that was INO (RIP), a new ‘Neo-Izakaya’ opened by the chefs behind Roji: on the menu: a mix of sushi, sashimi, and dishes cooked on an open-flame charcoal grill. It’s off to a flying start in our annual diners’ poll, with all reports lauding “a top new addition”. One caveat: “the counter seats are very tight to passing people – usually such perches are my favourite bet, but here I would go for a proper table”.