A ‘beak-to-tail’ restaurant offering 17 different cuts of chicken cooked on skewers over a custom-made hibachi grill opened this week on the edge of the City in Holborn. Hotori, in New Fetter Lane, is a yakitori specialist – a popular style of eating in Japan – although unlike most in its country of origin it also serves […]

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Chef Steven Smith, who left the acclaimed Ribble Valley gastropub Freemasons in Wiswell in June, has announced his next move – to head up futuristic Japanese restaurant MUSU in Manchester. Steven transformed Freemasons over 15 years into one of the most commented-on venues in the annual Harden’s survey, which described it this year as ‘a fine-dining […]

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A Japanese restaurant that has made a big splash in Taiwan and mainland China will open its first UK site in Soho’s Wardour Street next month. Kanpai Classic specialises in yakinuku, with customers cooking meat and vegetables themselves on a table-top grill. The grilling options will be led by a choice of 10 cuts of […]

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International Korean chef Akira Back makes his London debut at the new Mandarin Oriental hotel in Hanover Square, Mayfair, next Wednesday, 3 June – more than two years after it it was announced. He will operate two restaurants – Akira Back (pictured), reinterpreting Korean and Japanese dishes, and Dosa, a 14-seat chef’s table offering contemporary Korean […]

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A new restaurant and wine bar combining Japanese-influenced food with natural wines opens today (Wednesday 21 February) in a townhouse on the Deal seafront in Kent – with yoga and treatments also available upstairs. The Blue Pelican is the latest venture from Chris Hicks and Alex Bagner, husband-and-wife team behind The Rose boutique hotel and restaurant […]

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