A Kyoto-trained chef brought a real kaiseki method to a Mayfair basement and held a Michelin star since five months in. Kyoto-level seasonal cooking without the fourteen hours of travel.
At the table
The kitchen
Yoshinori Ishii trained in Kyoto and brought a real kaiseki method to a Mayfair basement, holding a Michelin star since five months after opening. The menu follows the Japanese seasonal calendar, so a visit in June is not the meal you would eat in October.
The room
The space is designed with the same economy of means as a well-considered Japanese interior: dark, quiet, unhurried. The sake list is serious, and for those who prefer to eat across a bar rather than at a table, the counter is the better seat.
The proposition
The specific value, for anyone outside Japan, is that this level of seasonal Japanese cooking is available in London without fourteen hours of travel, with the rigour genuine rather than adapted for a Western appetite.
At a glance
The TGC view
Umu is our London answer when a client wants Kyoto-level kaiseki without the journey. TGC holds the table, including the counter seats, which are the hardest to get.
Want us to arrange it?
We hold the relationships, the rooms and the access. Tell us the dates and we handle the rest.
Visit website ↗Marco Müller cooking in Mitte, thirteen inspirations or twelve, and a house that tells you how long the evening is by refusing to seat you after half past seven.
Read the review →Third floor of a former warehouse out past HafenCity. Thomas Imbusch cooks on a single stove standing open in the middle of the room, and the restaurant is named after two temperatures.
Read the review →A kaiseki house that tells you what dinner costs before you ask, which at this level is rarer than it should be. What its English page does not tell you is that the number changes on the first of October, in the months it also tells you to book early for.
Read the review →