Kibako, billed as a ‘modern Japanese restaurant’ featuring presentation boxes of exquisite small dishes, opened this week in Windmill Street, Fitzrovia. Taking over the site formerly occupied by Rai, Kibako is from the team behind Hot Stone in Islington’s Chapel Market, highly praised in the 2023 Harden’s Guide for its “high-quality Kobe beef, sushi and […]
Humo, a high-end wood-fire restaurant featuring Latin American and Japanese-influenced cuisine, opened this week in the Mayfair site formerly occupied by Anthony Demetre’s Wild Honey (RIP). Humo, meaning smoke in Spanish, is structured around a dramatic four-metre custom-built open grill which uses up to eight different types of wood tailored to specific dishes. No electricity […]
Next week sees the arrival of crystal sushi in London, with the opening of a new City restaurant from Hong Kong’s Aqua group. Shiro, in Broadgate Circle near Liverpool Street, will be the group’s fifth restaurant in London, following Aqua Shard and Hutong in the Shard, and Nueva and Kyoto on Regent Street. Crystal sushi, […]
Luke Findlay is launching a second branch of his ‘traditionally inauthentic’ ramen concept Supa Ya today, in Peckham’s Rye Lane. The former Berber & Q head chef developed the idea as a supper club in his Hackney flat, mixing Japanese ramen with classic British and European flavours, before road-testing it as a pop-up and opening […]
A new upmarket Japanese restaurant has opened in the middle of Newcastle, following a £600,000 refurbishment. Butakun, which means ‘Master Pig’, is next door to the landmark Hotspur pub on Percy Street – and is Tyneside’s second Japanese opening in a matter of weeks following Miso in Ouseburn. Robert Lao, Chin Teow and Charles Tang (left to […]
A high-end Japanese omakase restaurant with a Middle Eastern twist is scheduled to open in Marylebone by the end of September. Mayha, in Chiltern Street, is the first UK opening from Beirut’s Nothing But Love group, although chefs Jurek Wasio and Yuichi Nahayo have both previously worked in London’s Yashin Sushi and Ocean House. The […]
Korean-American celebrity chef Akira Back is to make his European debut with a restaurant at the new Mandarin Oriental Mayfair hotel, which is scheduled to open in Hanover Square next winter. The chef made his name at the Yellowtail Japanese Restaurant & Lounge in Las Vegas, where his signature dish is tuna pizza, and also […]
Welsh ramen wizard James Chant, whose Matsudae Ramen start-up became a lockdown meal-kit hit and a pop-up phenomenon touring Manchester, Bristol and London, is to open his first bricks-and-mortar restaurant in Cardiff early this summer. James, who had never worked as a chef, launched the business as a creative outlet three years ago after becoming […]
Highly rated chef Scott Hallsworth is to launch a pop-up restaurant in a former Clerkenwell pizzeria this month, where he will give his Japanese-inspired plates a new twist by cooking in a wood-fired pizza oven. Double Dragon, in a Victorian bank building on Rosebery Avenue, opens on February 16. The Aussie-born chef headed kitchens at […]
The Mandarin Oriental in Knightsbridge is replacing pimped-up New York-style burgers with a hyper-trendy oriental import with today’s opening of The Aubrey in the space formerly occupied by Bar Boulud. Named after the decadent fin de siècle artist Aubrey Beardsley, the Aubrey pitches itself as an “eccentric Japanese izakaya experience”, offering upmarket food and cocktails […]
