NOBU LONDON
19 Old Park Lane, Mayfair
tel +44 (0)20 7447 4747
noburestaurants.com
From its beginnings as a restaurant in New York in 1994, Nobu has become a worldwide brand name, and its London headquarters continues to live up to its reputation as a place for the rich, famous, or just those wanting a special occasion and prepared to pay for it. The partnership between chef Nobu Matsuhisa, actor Robert de Niro, producer Meir Teper, restaurateur Drew Nieporent and managing partner Richard Notar created a phenomenon which draws its strength from people visiting this particular establishment. It celebrates its 10th anniversary this year and holds a Michelin star, testament to those unsung chefs in the kitchen.
The food is excellent: famous dishes include tiradito Nobu-style, yellowtail with jalapeno, squid pasta, and, most famously, black cod with miso, but the real draw is the place itself and its unique atmosphere. As you are shown through to your table the waiters all shout "welcome" (they do it at other Japanese restaurants, but not as loud as they do it here). There's a pretty good view over Park Lane with Hyde Park beyond, and the design of neutral tones, blonde wood, and cream leather seating doesn't try and compete with it.
If you are a newcomer to Japanese food, Nobu is a good place to start your initiation: the staff are friendly, and used to dealing with an international audience of people incapable of mastering even the simplest menu. If you're there at lunch, inquire about the Bento boxes: they contain enough food for an entire day, and will give you a good taste of what the kitchen is capable of.
PRICE Set lunch menu: two courses £18, three courses £23. Dinner: three courses £42-45, four courses £48-52.
OPENING HOURS Lunch 12-2pm Sun-Fri, dinner 6.30-11pm Mon-Sat.
ZUMA
5 Raphael Street, Knightsbridge
tel +44 (0)20 7584 1010
zumarestaurant.com
If Nobu is all about "event" dining, then Zuma is about creating a continual "happening" atmosphere. Arrive around 1.30pm for lunch, or 9pm for dinner, and you walk into a busy, bustling and dark place where the tables are packed together and in every direction there seems to be a new space where diners are surrounded with dishes.
Zuma's location is an unpreposessing side street close to Harrods but open the monumental door and you are in a different world of stone, marble and wood. It's also noisy: a combination of bankers and the world's rich see to that. As mentioned, Zuma is quite a large restaurant. As well as the main dining area, you could choose to sit at the sushi counter and tobata grill, the sake bar or in the lounge, not to mention the two private rooms with kotatsu sunken tables (seat 12 and 14 people respectively) and a chef's table.
Zuma aims for "a sophisticated twist on the izakaya style of informal eating and dining" and succeeds under German-born chef Rainer Becker, previously of the Park Hyatt in Tokyo and then the Rib Room and Oyster bar at the Hyatt Carlton Tower (now Jumeirah). The menu changes seasonally, but signature dishes include baby chicken marinated in barley miso and oven-roasted in cedar wood, and crispy fried lemon sole with spicy pnzu sauce and green onions. There's plenty of expertise in the presentation of the sushi and sashimi dishes, but presentation can be impressively ornate, and calories are available by the bucketload: green tea and banana cake with coconut ice cream and peanut toffee sauce, anyone?
PRICE Lunch: two courses £14.95, three courses £17.95. Dinner: two courses £18.95, three courses £23.95.
OPENING HOURS Mon-Sat 7am-11pm, Sun 7.30am-11pm. Bar open late.
UMU
14-16 Bruton Place, Mayfair
tel +44 (0)20 7499 8881
umurestaurant.com
Compared with Nobu and Zuma, Umu is terribly discreet, and has an even shorter name to prove it. The location is on Bruton Place, a mews street off Berkeley Square, just below the popular Guinea pub, where high-end estate agents spill out on to the cobbles most summer evenings. Umu's signage is minimal and, despite its famous clientele, it seems to get overlooked by the paparazzi.
Owned by Marlon Abela (The Greenhouse – also Michelin-starred – and Morton's, the private members' club up the street in Berkeley Square), Umu is very expensive, but worth it if Japanese food is something you enjoy eating, rather than a pretext for having a meal without actually eating anything. If you have a friend or colleague who professes to be a sushi expert, treat them to one of the kaiseki menus, the Kyoto cuisine in which chef Ichiro Kubota specialises. These range in price from £60 to £135 per head (another £30 if matched with sake), but at the top end (the "Kyoto" sushi kaiseki) that would get you seasonal appetiser, tuna back and sweet shrimp roll, langoustine with sea urchin, uzusukuri and hikizukuri of three fish of the day, traditional sushi, suimono, modern sushi, toro teriyaki, wagyu sushi, blackberry, Tokyo leek, red or white miso soup, and fresh fruit or home made ice cream.
Then again, put a 12.5 per cent service charge on it, and have a glass of wine beforehand to help the sake down and a couple of coffees at the end, and you won't get much change out of £400. Time to friendly up to the accounts department, or stick to one of the simpler set menus.
PRICE Two courses £24-28, three courses £32-35.
OPENING HOURS Mon-Sat 12-11.30pm, Sun 12-10.30pm.
