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London,
Fay Maschler's rating
Reader rating
Description: Located just off Tottenham Court Road, Hakuba is one of the more stylish Japanese restaurants that have proliferated in the West End in recent years. The distinctly contemporary interiors feature discreet booths alongside the more buzzing central dining room, along with a low-lit bar serving creative cocktails as a prelude to the equally innovative food. Try one of the two tasting menus for an overview of what the kitchen here is capable of: crab salad and avocado wrapped in white fish, for example, baked scallops with maki and smelt roe, or beef amiyaki with wasabi mash. If you fancy a more bespoke selection, order from the extensive list of sushi and sashimi dishes, or the Hakuba signature dishes.
Phone: +44 2073003250
Website: http://www.hakubarestaurant.com
Open: Open for lunch from 11:00 to 15:00, Monday to Saturday. Open for dinner from 17:00 to 23:30 Monday to Saturday, and 17:00 to 23:00 on Sunday.
Dress code: Smart casual
Payment options: All major cards accepted
Kobe Jones's head chef, Shingo Suzuki inspects a dish of Kobe rolls.
Sitting in a new Japanese restaurant, an imposing chap wearing chef's whites and speaking with an American accent announced to us that he figured if Nobu could come to London then so could Kobe Jones.
Kobe Jones (no relation to Indiana) is a restaurant group specialising in Japanese-Californian food, which has outlets in Sydney and Melbourne, now London and soon Bangkok.
What our new acquaintance seemed to have left out of the equation was Nobu's first London appearance in the Metropolitan Hotel overlooking Hyde Park, compared with Kobe Jones's perch on the ground floor of St Giles Hotel - a favourite of budget travellers just off Tottenham Court Road.
And then there is the business of celebrated chef Nobu Matsuhisa and celebrated backer Robert De Niro, compared with the unknown Kobe, whose namesake beef doesn't even appear on the menu.
The spacious premises, which have their own entrance in Great Russell Street - but as so often with these hotel-restaurant deals, share the lavatories with the main building - are decorated in a Japanesey rustic style with lots of dark wood and dim lighting and have as a striking asset a series of small rooms surrounding the main dining area.
Three of us were allowed into one of these spaces - a less kind reviewer might call them booths - which, since the brand new restaurant was understandably underpopulated, provided instant intimacy.
The menu kicked off with a selection of Kobe rolls, most of them sporting rice on the outside. We tried Dynamite Roll with our choice of yellowfin tuna - kingfish, salmon and scallops were the other options - and specified three as the chosen heat level on a scale of one to five.
We also ordered Volcano Roll, featuring baked scallops on a Californian roll. Both dishes were arranged as large heaps of ingredients, appealing in the same mushy/crunchy, strident/cooling way that Gujarati snacks do, but at considerably more expense.
The apparently deliberate lack of precision in the presentation and liking for creamy sauces seems antithetical to the traditions of Japanese cuisine, but possibly appeals to those nervous of raw fish and restraint. Indeed, connoisseurs of raw fish should skip the sashimi omakase, which turned out to be a drab gathering.
We liked one of the Kobe Jones signature dishes, Number One Special. Composed of crab salad, avocado and snapper, it was also robed in "KJ's cream sauce" but managed to emerge delicious.
Our choice of main dishes served with miso soup and rice were grilled Chilean sea bass and Iberico pork ribs. The sea bass resembled miso-marinated-black cod. The ribs were fatty and f labby with an over-emphatic sauce.
Our waitress, with movie star looks, found it hard to understand us and vice versa. She didn't get our pronunciation of edamame, while we struggled to realise what sheebers (sea bass) was.
We very much liked the restaurant's sake-pouring tradition, which involved the drink spilling over the cylindrical glass into a lacquered box from which it could also be drunk. This seemed to me quite the best innovation that Kobe Jones has introduced.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
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I visited this restaurant 3 days ago and was hugely impressed by the not just the decor but the truly beautiful ambient 'chill out' music played all night. Having eaten at both Nobu in London and New York, I thought that Kobe Jones was every bit as good but I enjoyed the food here far more - taste sensations all night. The service was attentive and gracious without being intrusive and the private booths made for a really intimate evening. Definitely a place to go back to again and again!
- Antonia, London,UK
I visited this place last week. I thought the decor was fantastic and the food was amazing. I loved it and will certainly be back again to try more delicious items from the extensive menu. I really recommend this venue.
- Katherine, London, UK
