Stairway to heaven

I associate questionnaires with charter airlines or middle-market catering chains such as Groupe Chez Gérard. They track a customer base. But surely punters just pour into a Nobu. It was almost touching. The payback for form-fillers - they were only used before the official opening - was reduced prices.

Nobu Berkeley is open for dinner only Monday to Saturday. There is a no-bookings policy except for parties of more than six. It will be interesting to see if the idea works, given the pressure on tables at Nobu in The Metropolitan, Park Lane. It is a potentially lucrative notion since on the ground floor is a large "holding" bar where Nobu special cocktails cost £10.50.

Aimed at the partying crowd, the décor by David Collins (who else?) is more frisky than the restrained (drab?) lineaments of Nobu in Park Lane. Outside the bar, where seating and lighting seem arranged for cross-pollination, golden steps within a black stairwell curve up to the restaurant.

As customers reach the top, the cry of "irashaimase" goes up. Staff, dressed surprisingly unbecomingly, are shouting a welcome and a warning that new people need attention. As the evening wears on, you get the feeling they enjoy letting off steam with this bellowing.

At the left of the stairs is a sushi bar, tables and a hibachi table (in-built grills). To the right are tables in a space decorated by velvet pondweed (my interpretation) sewn onto canvas. Grey curving pillars are supposed to represent trees. The lighting is wonderfully flattering. It reminds me of a sort of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for grown-ups who like sashimi.

I ate twice at Nobu Berkeley last week, once at the hibachi table and once à la carte. I will concentrate just on the highlights - and let-downs. The outstanding dish, grilled in front of us, was shabushabu made with Iberian pork, more frequently a cured ham but when fresh as rosy-red as beef.

Thin slices poached in stock are served with dips of ponzu (citrus and soy sauce) and spicy miso. The meaty stock is eventually poured onto soft noodles and spiked with yuzu (Japanese citron) and ginger. Heaven. Wagyu beef, the intensely marbled meat similar to Kobe but available outside Japan, was grilled and served with an intricate anticucho sauce where chilli paste is let down with sake, and herbs, spices and oil added.

Tiny oysters with jalapeno salsa, sweet shrimp with caviar and octopus carpaccio with bottarga (sullied by the presence of lollo rosso) were also particularly memorable. I'll let the desserts speak for themselves: wild strawberry sake jelly; white chocolate with blackcurrant; chocolate granité; pinenut crunch; coconut delice, almond financier. In addition, a bento box of exquisite chocolates was offered.

One menu section is entitled Wood Oven. An aubergine steak with bonito flakes and cabbage steak with truffles were either undercooked in the first instance or charred in the case of the cabbage. A Peruvian-style skewer of chicken had a sauce that tasted of raw chilli powder. But these are minor quibbles in the face of excellent, imaginative salads, superb sashimi and jumbo asparagus with dried miso.

The sake we drank from a frozen piece of bamboo was the driest, Hokusetsu Onikoroshi. This cost £16 for 300ml. Nobu's Favourites cost considerably more: £63-£140 for 500ml. In his book Nobu Now, the man himself stresses the importance of the happiness of staff and customers, hence those questionnaires. "The cooks, the staff and the customers together 'make music'," he rightly observes. That said, he's off in his private jet to plan the next Nobu.

Nobu Berkeley
Berkeley Street, London, W1J 8DY