GOURMET GUIDE TASTE OF
GOURMET GUIDE TASTE OF JAPAN From left: Endo Kazutoshi; place setting at Roketsu; The Aubrey’s fare; Sushi Kanesaka Marylebone eatery is situated in Portman Village, where chefowner Daisuke Hayashi, who brings decades of experience at Japan’s world-renowned Kikunoi Honten working as a protégé of the owner and chef Yoshihiro Murata, serves up a traditional kaiseki meal with dashi (the mystical Japanese dried fishbased broth) as its foundation, for 10 diners at two sittings each evening. The attention to detail is next-level – inspired by the wabi philosophy and aesthetic, even the tableware varies by season in accordance with its principles. Libations, which can also be enjoyed at the midcentury basement lounge, have been conceived by sommelier Ryosuke Mashio, who prior to Roketsu spent 13 years as head sommelier at Michelin-starred Umu. He has amassed an award-winning wine list where over 70 sakes are on offer by the bottle, including two sakes imported exclusively for the restaurant – Kikunoi and Echigoryu – as well as more than 20 available by the glass. A similar fusion of omakase and kaiseki is on offer at the incredible eight-seat Maru (marulondon.com). Helmed by Yasuhiro Ochiai, previously head chef at two-Michelin-star Masato Nishihara’s esteemed Tsukumo restaurant in Nara, Japan, the restaurant offers a 20-course farm-to-fork, fishled daily-changing menu featuring primarily hyper-seasonal British ingredients in a petite space in Mayfair’s Shepherd FROM LEFT: TOM ASTERIADES, © ROKETSU 72 NetJets
FROM LEFT: GIADA ZOSI, © DORCHESTER COLLECTION Market. The setting is serene with interiors (complete with an eye-catchingly fetching framed shūji calligraphy), floristry, and crockery (handmade by Maruyama himself) that complement the multisensory meal. A must-try is the king crab, served in a silver bowl cast from the shell itself. But not all omakase has to be of the break-the-bank variety. At TOKii (tokii.co.uk), the refined in-house restaurant of the petite Nipponese Marylebone hostelry The Prince Akatoki, one can indulge in an intimate blind-tasting experience that’s veiled in secrecy until you and five other guests are comfortably seated at the chef’s counter for your 11-course journey. The décor and service are unfaultable and the fleet of elegant dishes (think Otoro tuna belly temaki) are served with confidence and aplomb. Those unfaltering precepts have held Endo at the Rotunda (endoatrotunda.com) in good stead since April 2019 when it opened on the top floor of The Helios building in West London. Since then, it has garnered a Michelin star thanks to chef Endo Kazutoshi’s uncompromisingly fastidious attention to detail and ingredients – seafood, for example, is sourced from Endo’s personal relationship with just a handful of fishermen: clams from Dorset, monkfish from Devon, cuttlefish from Brittany, scallops from Orkney, and much more. And the rice, as another example, is from a dedicated farm in Fukuoka Prefecture, ensuring that it has the perfect PH when rendered. Patrons, just a dozen of them, sit transfixed around a meandering 200-year-old hinoki wood counter and beneath a washiinspired, cloud light feature that levitates gracefully above, with expansive views of West London as accompaniment. But omakase as a concept isn’t limited to just exquisite rations. At The Aubrey (theaubreycollection.com), an eccentric Japanese izakaya experience at the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, bar director Pietro Rizzo and his team embrace the ancient principals of seasonal and elegant combinations, for a deeply immersive and ever-changing experience through the expansive world of Japanese spirits including everything from umeshu, shochu, sake, and a miscellany of Asian herbs and spices. The elusive ingredients are transformed into exciting elixirs that are served alongside a carefully curated selection of Japanese-inspired light bites to just six patrons per sitting, in a stunningly sultry space, with art inspired by the Japonisme movement, gilded finishings, and plush leather and velvet furnishings and fixtures, all tucked away behind a secret door. In the end, regardless of the particulars of the omakase experience, the remarkable blend of seasonality and intimate size ensures it will be a meal to remember. NetJets 73
