London, Japanese Restaurant Guide

“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”.

For a dependable meal near Barbican, this straightforward Japanese venue has a twenty-year heritage, although it has shifted site in the last couple of years from Whitecross Street to its new home in ‘The Heron’: a 31-storey block a few streets away. Fans say its performance is very good, and although ratings are a little up-and-down it’s worth knowing about in this thinly provided area.

“Fun but fully priced” would be a fair overview of this funky fusion duo – outposts of a glossy US-based chain that started in NYC. The original is found at the top of one of West Europe’s fastest lifts, whisking you to the glamorous 38th floor of the Heron Tower (adjacent to Duck & Waffle, see also), complete with a stylish cocktail lounge and outside terrace. Its newer sibling opened in 2018: “it’s above the market in Covent Garden which is a great location/space (regardless of what currently occupies it!)”. In both spots, all reports agree its luxurious Latino-meets-Japanese bites are super-moreish and “consistently good”. Prices though are OTT, especially as “you can feel like you are in a machine, and they churn out huge numbers of covers so service feels rushed. And it’s big, it’s loud, feels like a bun fight!!” (“Sushi Samba was my 18-year-old daughter’s choice and was not as bad as I feared, but not particularly stand-out either”.)

“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.

2024 Review: Neither its prime City location – overlooking Broadgate Circle – nor its experienced heritage (the Hong Kong-based Aqua group, with their Aqua-branded operations in the Shard and on Oxford Street) have helped garner huge attention for this glossy December 2022 newcomer: a minimalist Japanese, where chef Ken Miyake offers ‘crystal sushi’ (draping sushi rolls in coloured jelly slices with kimchi, ponzu or mint and sake favouring) plus robata-grilled meats and noodles. The exception is a January 2023 review from the Independent’s Lucy Thackray, who said the “dizzying” selection of dishes “hit the mark, when it comes to the trifecta [of] presentation, flavour, quality”. She also noted, though, that portions are “petite”; and that it’s “easy to rack up quite a bill”.