Jack pays a visit to Mayfair’s latest highly fancy purveyor of Washoku and Japanese deliciousness, Sakagura. Landing in the UK at the end of 2016, you’ll find Sakagura on Heddon Street, near Oxford Circus. Asides from what is some spectacularly well thought out (and stimulating) food, there’s a comprehensive (and expensive) Japanese drinks menu .Sakagura’s food is art in the culinary and aesthetic sense, no doubt about it…
Rating:
Cuisine:
Japanese / Washoku
Appeals To:
Deadly serious food lovers and explorers, possessing money, time and attention to spare on a Japanese restaurant that delivers on virtuosity and doesn’t spare any expense in doing so. The kind of person who wants to get intimately acquainted with the wonderful, complex and diverse world of sake (and enjoy some pairings with this sake). Lots of whisky and Japanese beer too. Also anyone with a large expense account, and a discerning client with an interest in high end/Japanese food. Or date night with the intent to make an impression.
In a Word
Deluxe
持ち上げたりさえするの
Before your foot has even touched the candlelit ground behind the glass door leading into Sakagura, you can see where this is going. And where is it going? To some (perhaps excessively) luxurious interpretation of Japan, by way of the somewhat sequestered Heddon Street. It may also be going into your bank account being overdrawn, or one too many delicious Nihon Slings. I’d say ‘go with it’ but that would be irresponsible. So don’t.
Almost, but not entirely hidden away just off of Regent Street, Sakagura London represents what appears to be a fruitful partnership between The Japan Centre, The Araki (you know, that really expensive Japanese restaurant in Mayfair) and Choya – who make some mighty fine plum wine. I am told that Sakagura literally means ‘sake cellar’ – which is apt because Gekkeikan (a brewery who hold the royal warrant, amongst other things) are also aboard.
A restaurant derived from the culture that built a philosophical framework around ‘mindfulness’ – no attention has been spared to the little details at Sakagura. From the tiny wood carved tokens they give you for the cloakroom, to ‘choose your own adventure’ with their collection of ornate sake cups, Sakagura is designed to create a thoughtful experience of conspicuous (and simultaneously understated) oriental grandeur.
The Ambiance
Divided into two floors, downstairs you’ll find an 11 seat, wooden chef’s table (what they call a ‘kappo bar’) – here you can watch the chefs doing their thing at the robata grill, and cutting sushi at a spectacular pace. Intimate yes – bit if you don’t like getting smoke on your clothes, this is not the seating arrangement for you. This area also doubles as the restaurant’s sake cellar, presenting unintelligible yet beautiful bottles in an almost museum like space. Here you shall experience a more quiet (though not necessarily more intimate) dining experience than upstairs.
As for upstairs? It’s decorated in a manner familiar to anyone who ever paid a fancy Japanese restaurant a visit. An emphasis on trellised bare wood, dark, earthy tones, mood lighting and, for some reason, textured concrete. Seating is mainly split out into little booths. A conspicuous and promising bar (what they explicitly refer to as a sake bar) – presides over all. There you shall find the one part of the experience that diverges from the Japanese theme – well dressed, spirited and chatty bartenders pulling pints and assembling cocktails with the kind of Mediterranean energy and finesse that is hugely at odds with the laid back feeling of the rest of the place.
There are even a few seats outside, though nobody dares claim them (despite Sakagura’s outdoor heating) in the current cold snap.
The place is hardly packed out on the Saturday evening I am dining here, but I don’t think they’ve been around quite long enough to fully establish a reputation in such a storied area… yet.
As for the staff? Mostly Italian folks working the bar (and some other Europeans) – mainly Asian folks waiting the floor (also with some Europeans thrown in). And an powerfully accommodating and dapper floor manager who I think is from Poland?
Plenty of native Japanese speakers set the scene for the sometimes uncomfortable level of attentiveness that you get at any high end Japanese restaurant; gratuitous bowing, convincing and multitudinous shouts of “いらっしゃいませ!” (irasshaimase – which kinda translates to ‘come on in!’, I think).
When I am here there is most definitely an unfavourable ‘staff to customer ratio’, resulting in that sensation of idle staff hovering, waiting for something. They must be burning through a lot of that Japan Centre capital on those quiet afternoon shifts…
The Food and Drink
So yes, all this beautiful woodwork, pomp and circumstance is fine and good, but how about the food and drink? Well, if I were asked to sum up the culinary offering in a sentence, I would say ‘artful and thought provoking sustenance, in expensive and small portions’. Fine dining, Japanese style… you know the drill.
The menu comes courtesy of Shoryu Ramen’s executive chef Kanji Furukawa – taking traditional southern Japanese recipes as its starting point (…they refer to their cuisine as ‘Washoku’). Kanji and his team have quite the flair for ‘presentation’, however, and most every single dish is a feast for the eyes before you’ve even broken out the chopsticks.
As for drinks? ‘Extensive’ is the theme for the drinks menu – which includes plenty of intense Japanese whiskies (including some very pricey ‘Sakagura selections’), Louis XIII cognac (which gets its own section), Japanese rums (this is actually a big thing), and a surprisingly/not surprisingly huge tea selection too. Sake, which is certainly the main event of the drinks front, is divided into regional styles – with lovingly detailed descriptions and tasting notes for each one. There’s also a ‘proper’ sake sommelier on duty too, a woman (…her name eludes me now) well advanced in the peripatetic drinking advice game.
It is worth reminding you that although this style of food and drink is ‘traditional’ – it is not ‘normal’, most Japanese people don’t have the time, money or inclination to prepare a dinner quite like this every night. If they did, what’s to stop you, me and all our friends emigrating over there right now? Japanese customs maybe (in both senses of the word, ha!…)
But enough of this seditious talk. Here’s what Sakagura had to serve us:
Maguro Tartare £16
Salmon Teriyaki £13
Wagyu Beef Aguri Steak £27
Kamameshi – Madai and Ikura £15
Ice Cream and Sorbet £7
Matcha Fondant Gateau £8
The Verdict:
Some hiccups in service do very little to taint what is a near flawless dining experience.
Inevitably, cost is the issue. If you value how much food and drink your money will get you, Sakagura is not for you. If you value the overall dining experience, (one that puts a heavy stress on the Oriental take on luxury) Sakagura might be for you.
Would I go on my own dime? No – I could buy a hell of lot of things for the price of an evening here (and I certainly enjoyed my evening). But if I had someone else’s money…? I used to work at a large multinational with a Japanese presence. If, hypothetically, they were to let me treat the Japanese office (because I want to treat EVERYONE) I’d love to take a bunch of the Nihonbashi natives here and see what they made of the whole song and dance.
After all, Japanese people are said to love food even more than we do…
The Details:
8 Heddon St, Mayfair, London W1B 4BU
https://www.sakaguralondon.com/