Kokin, Stratford

Lots of potentially very well-respected global cuisines have an unenviable, constant uphill battle against the enshittification of their brand by High Street UK. If your only exposure to Mexican food is Las Iguanas, or Zizzi's for pasta, or Domino's for pizza, or Nando's for... whatever-the-hell Nando's are trying to do, then you can be excused (though perhaps not completely forgiven) for thinking the cuisines in question don't have much going for them. I'm not completely blameless on this front, either - until I went to the US and Mexico I wasn't that interested in Mexican food. Now I'm utterly obsessed with it.

The point is, it's worth reminding yourself that Zizzi's is only a pasta restaurant in the same way that a Pot Noodle is a plate of linguine alle vongole and that whatever you might think about Wasabi or Itsu (and they are nowhere near the worst of the high street chains, in fact they're not even the worst high street Japanese (*cough* Wagamama *cough*)), Japanese food, and sushi in particular, has the potential to be utterly magical. And with that in mind, let me introduce you to Kokin.

In the bright, beautiful and comfortable space that used to be Allegra (of which RIP of course, but chef Patrick Powell is now at One Club Row where I believe he's doing even better) now sits an ambitious sushi+ restaurant. "Sushi+" is a phrase I've just invented now, meaning somewhere that does mainly sushi, but also a few other bits and pieces. There's probably already a word for restaurants like this, but I'm too lazy to look it up.

These kinds of places can often overwhelm with far too many menu options, but Kokin by and large keeps things simple. There's a page or two of tempting small dishes, some tempura and grilled options, and then a good healthy selection of sashimi and nigiri involving plenty enough rare and hard-to-get ingredients (conger eel, sea urchin, otoro) to get any sushi enthusiast's pulse racing. We started with this utterly beautiful assorted starter platter of oyster with "apple-smoked celeriac puree" and something called "nabansu jelly", which I couldn't quite figure out but seemed vaguely citrussy, crunchy cubes of fried tofu, mackerel rolls, a gorgeous bowl of rich, expertly-textured chawanmushi just the right balance between floppy and solid, and... one other thing I didn't try and didn't write down. It was probably good though.

Instead of the suggested chef's selection of sashimi, we couldn't resist going a bit leftfield so ordered otoro, sea urchin and sea bream. All were superb, as good as I've had anywhere, but the uni was particularly fresh and buttery and without much of that stale seashore taste (which I realise some people like).

We did, however, go with the chef's selection of nigiri, which used correctly body-temperature rice - by nowhere means a given at even pretty fancy places, I'm sorry to say. Salmon, akami, chutoro (I think), bream, and squid were all just about as perfect as you can imagine, lightly brushed with nikiri and worth every bit of the £27 (so just over £5 a pop).

Actually, this is probably a good time to talk about value. Obviously, as a top-end Japanese restaurant in a 5-star hotel, Kokin was never going to be cheap. And as a long-time London resident depressingly used to paying way over the odds for mediocre food, perhaps my expectations for what I might get for my money here were slighty on the low side. But honestly, I have paid way, way more for far less accomplished food, and alongside the beautiful theatrical flower-arrangement presentations and the friendly and attentive service, it all added up to, if not exactly a bargain, then certainly a more than acceptable return.

Anyway back to the food. We were now onto the larger dishes and this tuna collar was utterly brilliant. Gently marinated in ponzu, expertly chargrilled to get a gentle dark crust but still keep the tuna flesh inside pink and soft, it was one of the greatest tuna dishes I think I can remember eating in my life - worth the trip to Stratford on its own. I was quite unprepared for how good this was, and I think if I ever went back to Kokin - and I very much hope I do - I'd probably order one just for myself. Sadly, I had to share this beauty.

Next, miso black cod which I note isn't on the current website menu which at least shows a pleasing willingness to chop and change things depending on what's good and available. This was also superb - perhaps not quite as life-changing as the tuna but still extremely enjoyable, with a bright white flesh and delicate ponzu (I think, again) dressing.

Then a new experience for me - Amadai Matsukasa Yaki, an elaborate and difficult (by all accounts, hence why you so rarely see it here) process involving carefully ladling hot oil over a tilefish, which puffs up the scales and turns it into a lovely collection of soft seafood textures. This seems to have been served with a selection of delicately tempura'd vegetables which didn't appear on the menu so, as I say, I get the impression the offering at Kokin is pretty fluid - as all the best places are.

And that was all we ordered in round one, and would have easily been enough to have us skipping home our separate ways with a smile on our faces, but we were having so much fun we didn't want our lunch to end, so we ordered this pretty little fan of "olive wagyu" short rib. Now I have seen "olive wagyu" before on menus, for many, many times more than we paid for this plate, so either there are grades of olive wagyu I am not aware of, or somehow they've got hold of a job lot of the stuff at a discount. Or they stole it. Either way, it was beautiful, melt-in-the-mouth stuff, well worth £36.

And then finally, a selection of desserts presented in a kind of shelving wheel. There was some kind of pickled pear I think, and a green matcha cake, but I don't think you'd really come here for the desserts. Their strengths, and they are many, lie elsewhere.

The bill, for 3 people, came to £143 each. This is not cheap, but again - this is some of the best Japanese food I've had in London, and if you have a quick scan of the prices in other places doing uni and amadai and otoro, I'm pretty sure you'll find what Kokin are charging is more than reasonable. Also, that figure includes two bottles of £48 fizz, so if you went a bit more careful on the booze front you'd spend even less.

But you shouldn't just go to Kokin because it's one of the best value high-end Japanese restaurants in London. You should go to Kokin - and you really should go to Kokin - because it's one of the best Japanese restaurants in London at all, in one short(ish) lunchtime reminding me and a couple of friends just how good this kind of stuff is when done well, by people who understand the brief and are singularly equipped with skills to deliver it. The room, the service, the spectacular views over east London from the 7th floor, that's all a lovely bonus. But even if it was served in a dark basement for twice the price, Kokin would still get my vote. That's how bloody good it is.

9/10

Evernight, Battersea

Knowing we would be having dinner at Evernight I thought aperitifs at Homeboy Battersea, just around the corner in the same building, would be a nice way to kick off the evening. I was at Homeboy a couple of years ago just after it had opened, was treated to a very decent burger and ice cold martini and left thinking that, well, perhaps this weird overdeveloped bit of Legoland Embassyville with its floating swimming pools and Thamesview gyms with floor-to-ceiling windows was worth the occasional visit after all. I've always had a soft spot for Darby's, too, also nearby.

But a strange thing happened when I tried to Google the Homeboy location - it kept redirecting me to Homeboy Islington (also worth visiting, on Essex Road), the Battersea branch seemingly wiped from existence. Of course, it turns out it had closed at some point in the recent past, and though it's probably not a good idea to draw too many conclusions about the entire area from the closure of one flagship bar - hospitality is in a very tricky place right now generally - it feels like if this very smart and mature operation couldn't survive more than a couple of years with so much money around (I refer you to that floating swimming pool, and the river view gyms) then maybe the problems run deeper than just knowing your audience.

I hesitate, then, recommending Evernight due to a perverse combination of a) not wanting it to get so oversubscribed that I'll find it impossible to get a tablein the future, and b) worrying that like so many of these flagship openings in new developments, it won't last until the end of the year. For now, though, I'm going to assume neither of these things will happen and instead draw your attention to these lovely and colourful house pickles, a great little palate cleanser we kept coming back to between nibbles of other dishes.

A silky smooth whipped cod's roe spread inside warm brioch-y ageban buns like salty seafood butter, and made another top class snack. It was also noted with some satisfaction that the pickles that came attached to this dish were both (carrot and cucumber) different to those (radish, chilli and celery... I think) that arrived with the separate snack. I always appreciate a lack of overlap.

It was about this time that we bumped into Shaulan Steenson, executive chef at the wonderful Temaki in Brixton, on his way to serve 6 lucky people an omakase menu in the Evernight private dining room. Anyone who's ever been to Temaki will know it's one of the best - and best value - spots for Japanese food in London, and it makes absolute sense that given the opportunity to spread his wings a bit in this exciting new space he's jumped at it. Pictured here is an element of that menu, a stuffed katsu chicken wing - utterly lovely in every way - which he very kindly sent out. Anyway, more details here for those interested.

I didn't really love the scallop sashimi, but was persuaded to risk my own personal aversion to raw scallops because of the rather interesting sounding 'potato dashi'. In the end, this didn't live up to the promise either and what we ended up with was some rather wobbly, cloying raw scallop in a fairly bland and underseasoned sauce. Still, there's every chance a scallop fan would find a lot more to like.

Sake cured trout was much more interesting, the trout itself having a nice earthy taste and broad beans making a much more pleasant accompaniment than the more traditional edamame (come on, you know it's true).

But the real fireworks were saved for the next course. "Smoked eel, Potato Cake and N25 Caviar" is one of those rare instances where a dish reads like a dream, and still lives up to the promise. Whether the potato cake topped with caviar was a knowing or coincidental nod to the famous Quality Chop House dish is hard to say - the two restaurants couldn't otherwise be more different - but alongside this gorgeous mouthful, which would have been more than worth the price of admission by itself - was two dainty sticks of spring onion (I think - we shared this dish a little unevenly and I didn't try that bit) and a fantastic sweet-glazed geometric portion of meaty smoked eel. You will, if all goes well, be hearing a lot more about this dish in the future.

The savoury courses hadn't finished quite yet though - chawanmushi with morels and wild garlic was another staggeringly inventive and successful fusion dish, marrying foraged British ingredients with high-end Japanese techniques. It's going to be very interesting seeing how the Evernight menu evolves through the seasons as different local ingredients come and go. I wonder if they can be persuaded to do something with grouse in August?

Before the desserts, three cute skewers of grilled mochi, smoked [Lincolnshire] Poacher [cheese] and chilli crisp. Enjoyable, certainly - particularly the fluffy cheese sauce on top - but I'm afraid we were still delirious from the smoked eel and the chawanmushi and I don't remember a great deal about these otherwise. Maybe I'm just not a mochi fan.

Desserts continued mashing together British and Japanese flavours and techniques to the standard of that in the best of the savoury courses. This was a strawberry custard affair topped with shiso granita and I think sake ice cream, and if you can't enjoy those things together on a plate there's really no hope four you at all.

And finally, melon, vanilla and sansho meringue, a supremely light and gently peppery meringue sat in a wonderfully summery melon and vanilla soup.

Now, although the menu looks great value at first glance - and largely is - and we had absolutely no problem with our overall bill, it's fair to say that the dishes are often only mouthfuls and you'll often want to order one each (particularly the chawanmushi and smoked eel, as you won't ever have enough of those). Without a great deal of booze on our visit, and leaving not exactly stuffed, the bill came to £62pp, so you could realistically spend £100pp+ if you end up going for the big ticket items like the 'Turbot, asparagus and Yuzu-shu' (£26) or 'Cornish Lobster, Crab and Ikura Rice Donabe' (£52 for two). Oh, and final moan - the bench seating is way too low down. We asked to be moved to a high table, which was perfect, and though it was very entertaining watching other customers attempt to enjoy their dinner with their chins only just clearing the surface of the tables in front of them, you may not want the same experience yourself.

Overall though, Evernight impresses, delights and excites far more than it needs to. Yes, it's a strange, soulless and windswept part of town which demonstrates everything that's wrong with the London real estate industry, but it would be deeply unfair to blame the team behind Evernight for that. Japanese fusion food, in this city at least, is rarely done as well as this, and I think having to eat it in Nine Elms is a small price to pay for an experience so ultimately rewarding.

8/10

Koya Ko, Broadway Market

Much as I will always have a soft spot for Koya (and specifically their new Broadway Market spot Koya Ko), there are certain aspects of an evening there that, well, let's just say need addressing.

The first thing is the strangely opaque (and I don't just mean the colour of the miso broth) way dishes are described on the menu. I would say quite an important thing to know when ordering a bowl of noodles is not only whether a dish is hot or cold (this is illustrated, and so fine) but also crucially whether it comes as a soup or not. This is not, for some bizarre reason, mentioned, and so requires you asking the (admittedly friendly and patient) person taking the order about each dish in turn to find out whether it's just a plate of noodles or a big gorgeous heartwarming noodle soup. Particularly at this time of year, I will always want a broth. And while 'Tempura' does, 'Triple Pickle' doesn't. 'Kaiso Classic' does but 'Saucy' doesn't.

Fortunately, everything we ended up with was wonderful. But before I get to that, my second niggle. The place is tiny, with tables set at rather Covid-unfriendly elbow-clashing intervals and with sometimes a queue to order taking up any remaining space in the middle of the room. True you can eat outside, but that's becoming increasingly impossible, and you can take away, but if you want to enjoy your dinner hot and presented as beautifully as they do in the restaurant itself, you'll really want to eat in. And because this is Broadway Market you'll be sharing that steamy, noisy space with giant child's buggies, which have to be bumped down a set of narrow stairs on the way in and then somehow be parked up in a room barely big enough to hold the furniture it already has. Let me be very clear, kids in restaurants is not the problem here, it's that some spaces are just not designed for it however much they wish they were.

But forget about all that because just look at this food. Firstly the prawn tempura which came adorned with a single absolutely massive prawn in a fantastic batter which started off crisp and light then generally became a soft, fluffy element of the soup itself. The broth was clean and clear, seasoned subtly but not overwhelmingly salty, and of course the udon noodles were supremely good, probably the best you can get in London. At least, if there are any better around, I haven't found them yet.

To circumvent the issue of 'Triple Pickle' not being a soup, we ordered a 'Plain' udon in broth, and a side of pickles. Both were fantastic, particularly the daikon which had a really addictively pongy - in a good way - funk.

And this is 'Kaiso Classic', four types of seaweed adorning another winning arrangement of slippery, meaty udon noodles and warming soup. Into this we cracked a 'Tamago', not the kind of sweet omelette thing you see in sushi places but a single whole egg very cleverly (and presumably very slowly) poached in its own shell. The white was wobbly and soft, the yolk runny, and it combined brilliantly with the noodles.

With a couple of green teas and a (very nice) house lemonade, the bill came to about £15 a head, which I hardly need to point out for food of this quality and consistency, and sheer technical ability, one of the great food bargains of London. It's a victim of its own success perhaps but that was always likely to be the case in this part of town, and I should point out in the interests of fairness that a solo repeat visit at lunchtime was a much more sedate and comfortable affair, sat at the bar chugging back a pork and miso bowl with seasonal greens (that would be lots and lots of watercress then) before heading off happy and full.

And look if you don't like queuing or noise or elbows, there's always the Soho branch, which is still brilliant and has a slightly more expanded and ambitious menu with ingredients like duck and beef tendon to dazzle and delight. There's also a branch in the Bloomberg Arcade and I've never been but you know what, that's probably pretty amazing too. Koya are one of London's real gems, food of thoughtfulness and invention and skill served for a ludicrously small amount of money, and if that makes them ludicrously oversubscribed too well, that's just the price we'll have to pay. And I'd pay it happily, over and over again.

8/10

Nama, Liverpool

If you visited a restaurant in a hideous soulless shopping mall, were told half the menu was unavailable and was forced to order the other half using a criminally un- user-friendly app seemingly designed specifically to be as upsetting as possible, well, you'd be forgiven for not having a very good time.

All these things are true about Nama, a new venture in the GPO food hall in Liverpool, which at first glance appears to have almost nothing going for it at all. If I was in the mood for elevated Japanese cuisine then I'd quite like a seat at a sushi bar in a quiet wood-panelled room, not an echoey corner of a space shared with people snaffling chicken burgers and milkshakes. I'd want to order my food from a friendly and capable member of staff, not a disastrously buggy app which managed to lose my entire order three times as soon as it got to the payment stage. And I'd expect a restaurant giving itself the description "tuna and wagyu" to have at least some wagyu on offer - I mean, come on.

And yet! And yet. Despite everything, despite all of this, Nama turned out to be one of the most exciting and memorable meals I've been privileged enough to enjoy in the last twelve months. It succeeds not because of its location, or the atmosphere, and certainly not that bloody app, but because the food they're making is astonishingly, blindingly good and at prices that make you wonder how on earth they're turning a profit.

These are Sicilian red prawns, plump and deliriously sweet little things, dressed in a lime & ginger ponzu and assisted by a kick of jalapeno. Finished with a few drops of lime oil and topped with wasabi - real wasabi, shaved fresh off the root - this was a sophisticated and classy dish combining the finest European ingredients with top Japanese cheffy skill. They cost £9, and were worth at least three times that. After finishing them off, we ordered another plate.

Stone bass, from Cornwall, rested in a lemongrass and yuzu ponzu, topped with more of that fresh wasabi and sprinkled with nori seaweed. The fish was beautifully sliced and arranged, the dressing expertly judged and the overall effect a masterclass in sushi work.

Salmon, Scottish, was very simply presented to allow the supremely impressive raw ingredient to shine. It was dressed only with a few sprinkles of sesame seed and chives, but with a bit of magic added from a brushing with 20-year-old tare sauce. This was £8.50, in case you thought £9 for the prawns was pushing it a bit.

Next, tuna tartare, from Japanese yellowfin this time, prettily arranged on a bed of koshihikari rice which was fluffy and body-temperature, as is correct, and as is wonderful. At certain moments the reality of eating this incredible food in such odd surroundings, with my fellow diners seemingly completely oblivious to the existence of a world-class Japanese restaurant in their midst, threatened to derail the mood. But the food was always good enough to compensate.

There was another dish of I think tuna I have a photo of here, but can't place it on the rather incomplete online menu. Whatever - rest assured it was as impressive and as great value as everything else, worth making the journey to this odd corner of a shopping mall in Liverpool many times over.

Of course, I need to go back to Nama, not least to try the Wagyu from Gunma prefecture which I was reliably informed would be appearing in a week or two (and by all accounts did, and was also wonderful according to a well-placed source) but also to double-check this amazing place ever existed in such an unlikely circumstance in the first place and wasn't just part of some wasabi-induced fever-dream. The GPO food hall I'm sure has its fans, and I'm sure Jailbird chicken and Patty B's burgers are perfectly decent, but to stumble across Nama felt a bit like the (possibly apocryphal) story of a couple of holidaymakers who obliviously thought they'd check out this restaurant they happened to drive past on the Costa Brava called El Bulli, just 5 minutes after a vanishingly rare cancellation at the most sought-after reservation in the world. Nama shouldn't be here, and yet it is.

And while it is, I suggest very strongly you go and eat there. Rarely has Japanese Izakaya food shined so brightly as in this unlikely spot in the North of England, and who knows what kind of prospect it has having to fight for attention next to the coffee shops and ice cream parlours of the GPO food hall. Even with that half-missing menu, and shonky apps, it is a reason in itself to visit Liverpool, and I can only assume by the time the word spreads, it will be even better. What a strange, unlikely place. But still, what a place.

9/10

Temaki, Brixton

One of the strange things about living in a country like the UK, somewhere that only in recent decades that has really found its feet when it comes to eating out and food generally, is that an ersatz introduction to a particular cuisine, via, say a high-street chain or supermarket reproduction, can quite unfairly cloud your opinion of an entire food culture for a good chunk of your life. For many of us growing up, Pizza Express was a pizza, and if you didn't like Pizza Express, you didn't like pizza. Sweet & sour pork balls was Chinese food, lamb vindaloo and poppadums was Indian, and a steakhouse served watery grey slabs of mystery meat with frozen chips and that was that.

The first time I tried a real, Neopolitan style pizza - at Santa Maria in Ealing I think it was - I was struck by the realisation that it wasn't actually pizza I didn't like, it was the cardboard-flavoured water biscuits covered in commodity slop they served at Pizza Express. Silk Road in Camberwell was lesson 101 in the infinite variety and invention of Chinese food, a journey that continues to this day, the idea that a country of a billion people and thousands of distinct cooking traditions could be accurately represented by a portion of frozen orange chicken and prawn crackers being increasingly farcical. And Tayyabs for Indian/Pakistani, and Hawksmoor for steak. See how far we've all come.

Now, don't get me wrong, there's nothing inherently wrong with a Set Meal A for Two or even Pizza Express if you're really desperate, but when a sizeable percentage of the British population grows up associating these places with Chinese food and Pizza then the task of convincing people it's worthwhile seeking out the real deal becomes increasingly difficult. I know a lot of people who say they don't like sushi, but I also know they will have only ever picked it off the shelves, cold and faded, at Waitrose or off the conveyor belt at Yo! Sushi at Gatwick North, and I wonder what their reaction would be to an omakase involving fluffy body-temperature rice and healthy slabs of marbled otoro.

So, step forward Temaki. If you think sushi isn't for you, or that the good stuff needs to be prohibitively expensive, this friendly yet determinedly cool space in Brixton Market is about to change all that. Not only is this serious, authentic Japanese food, borne of traditional skills (the chef spent a year in Japan) and making the most of the best British ingredients, but you're also treated to the theatre of your dinner being lovingly prepared to order, omakase-style, right in front of you, the kind of experience that you may expect to a hell of a lot more for elsewhere.

The menu is short, in that style of Japanese ultra-specialisation that London could really do with seeing a lot more of, and if there's a single damn thing on it you don't want to eat well, you're a stronger person than me. We basically tried everything, starting with a plate of monkfish kara age, golden-brown nibbles of meaty fish served with a ponzu-spiked mayo studded with fish roe.

Yellowtail sashimi came in another ponzu dressing, this time sharp and gently sweet, and with a couple of bits of chilli to add a bit of heat. Also on the plate were a citrussy nasturium leaves; Temaki use local ingredients whenever they think they're better than the alternative, to often impressive effect.

Take these peas, for example. Temaki have rightly decided that fresh local summer peas are a far more enticing prospect than frozen edamame shipped halfway across the world, and so, coated in salt and buckwheat, they have turned them into an English-Japanese fusion snack. You draw the peas out of the pods with your teeth while stripping the salty coating from the outside - innovative and dangerously addictive.

Salmon tataki had a good dark, firm crust and the house pickled onion cut through the fat beneath that skin beautifully.

House pickles included carrot, daikon and turnip, all a good balance of sweet & sour and loosened with sesame oil.

And then with the small plates and snacks out of the way, we were on to the main events. I'd had temaki before in the same way I'd had pizza before that meal at Santa Maria, insofar as not really. The cold, lifeless little cones of dry grains and sad fish available from your local supermarket bore absolutely no comparison to these things, prepared lovingly by hand with warm rice and the finest seafood, which were so gloriously easy to eat I'm surprised I'm not there still, endlessly reordering between mouthfuls of sake. This is akami tuna with nikiri soy, nikiri being that kind of glossy reduced sweet soy that sushi chefs often "paint" onto nigiri before serving, and it's this particular style of temaki that inspired head chef Shaulan Steenson to go down the temaki route after a life-changing experience in Japan. I find quite a few experiences in Japan tend to be life-changing.

Otoro (fatty tuna) was also fantastic, another addictively proportioned morsel of warm rice and fish, with some spring onion for crunch. There's almost certainly a lot more going on in these things than I am aware of, certainly there are more ingredients than the menu describes, but part of the joy of eating here is discovering all the clever little dressings and pickles they've added to the different temaki in order to better showcase the main ingredient. About this time, and not pictured here is a Devon (Brixham) crab temaki, which added white soy and egg yolk to the sweet, soft seafood.

Eel is another premium ingredient that Temaki know how to use well. Glazed in a BBQ sauce, and wrapped up with cucumber, it was another absolutely superb thing, each of the couple of mouthfuls it took to demolish it balancing honeyed seafood, the crunch of veg and soft rice.

As for a final bill, I'm afraid we didn't see one, as somewhere along the way my booking enquiry was intercepted by the owners and they had offered all of the above on the house. Thanks very much to them. But although food like this shouldn't ever be cheap, I think six expertly-crafted temaki with top-quality rice and ingredients like otoro, crab and eel for £30 is something approaching a bargain. Think of it as a kind of temaki tasting menu. And as for the generous mound of fried monkfish pieces (£7), the lovely crusty salmon tataki (£7) and so on, well, you'll only end up with a big bill because it's all so addictively brilliant, not because it's overpriced. This is, by anyone's standards, good value.

Look, I realise that in my worryingly obsessive foodie way I tend to get excited about anywhere doing something new (or at least new in London) because, well, new is exciting, especially for jaded old bloggers like me. Perhaps in a few years when there's a temaki bar on every street corner I'll look back on this review and wonder how I was so easily impressed, but something tells me quality like this will age well. And whether or not this is the start of some new hand roll trend or a one-off, the fact is it's here now and it's great, and so you should make the absolute most of it because if the last couple of years have taught us anything, it's that you'd better take these opportunities as often as you can. So what on earth are you waiting for?

9/10

I was quite prepared to pay for my dinner but the owners would have none of it, so I didn't see a bill. I think it would have come to about £50/head if we were paying.