You’ve probably heard, or seen, the Japanese word omakase popping up more and more in London.
It loosely translates as “I’ll leave it up to you”, and here, it’s seen as one of the most decadent ways to enjoy sushi.
In fact, its origins are kind of the opposite.
The term really became popular in the 90s, when a boom in the Japanese economy allowed a wider clientele to visit sushi restaurants (usually the preserve of the wealthy). As more people started to visit these restaurants, sushi culture started to shift. Consider, if you will, the unabated horror 99% of us feel when handed an enormous wine list. Unfamiliar items and names are enough to bring anyone out in a cold sweat, and with sushi, even the order you eat the dishes in could show you up as a total amateur. So to prevent embarrassing any inexperienced customers, the culture of omakase – leaving the order up to the chef – was born. You can even get omakase haircuts, or clothes.
But not in a restaurant, obviously.
Omakase stems from a word meaning to trust, or ‘surrender your will’. It’s about putting your whole dining experience in the hands of the chef. Thankfully, it’s a culture that’s come to the UK alongside top sushi chefs, and in the last few years there’s been a flurry of intimate sushi bars opening that operate on a purely omakase basis. Why? Well, it’s a pretty good system for the chefs, too, allowing them to serve up the best of whatever’s available on any given day. Nothing’s wasted, and you’re getting to experience the meal just as the chef intended – just like a tasting menu at any other high-end restaurant. And more often than not, you’ll be sat directly in front of the itamae (sushi chef), who’ll hand over each painstakingly prepared dish personally, one at a time.*
So in honour of this thriving tradition, we’ve put together our pick of the best places to order omakase in London, for every budget. And as for which is the absolute best?
We’ll leave that to you.
*A little note on this: traditionally, chefs interact very little with customers aside from serving the food, so if you’re expecting a full speech about the sourcing and preparation of each dish you might be disappointed. Instead, come here for the hushed, focussed theatre of watching the chef at work – and be aware there may be other requests from the restaurant, like no filming, or strong perfumes.
CASUAL OMAKASE SPOTS
These are restaurants where you can order omakase-style sushi and sashimi selections to take the choice paralysis away, but where you’ll also be able to order other dishes à la carte to make up a full meal.
Sushi Atelier | Oxford Circus
Sushi Atelier is the perfect introduction to the world of omakase. It’s a snug, casual sushi joint just a stone’s throw from Oxford Circus, brought to you by the team behind the upmarket Japanese eatery Chisou. That means sushi matching the quality of a high-end restaurant, in surroundings that are totally relaxed, warm and welcoming.
The omakase options here allow you to plump for a chef-picked selection of six, nine, or twelve pieces of sushi, which you can pad out with larger dishes like ceviche, donburi (rice bowls), and wagyu sliders if you’re still feeling peckish.
Details: 114 Great Portland Street, W1W 6PH | £23-60 to share | Make a booking at Sushi Atelier
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Kibako | Fitzrovia
Kibako is a Japanese word that simply means ‘wooden box’. And at Kibako, they do something rather innovative (at least here in London): they serve their omakase menu in kibako. That means you get a dozen little individual cubby holes packed with a series of superlative little gems. Each box is tailored to the guest (and what they may have ordered to go with their kibako), and each one allows for you to pick and choose the order you eat in, with bullets of seared butterfish with onion & pineapple salsa; hand-dived scallop with Japanese plum & ponzu sauce; and seared fatty tuna with red jalapeno. The dishes themselves are all prepped by chef Padam Raj Rai (he’s got a 20 year CV including places like Nobu, Roka, and Sake No Hana), and the space is pretty too, with showers of faux cherry blossom.
Details: 110 Great Portland St London W1W 6PQ | £59-£75pp | Make a booking at Kibako
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Chisou | Mayfair & Knightsbridge
The fancy sibling to Sushi Atelier, Chisou actually offers some surprisingly affordable omakase. In their Mayfair restaurant, it’s served up at both their fresh sushi counter and the six-person chef’s table, with the nigiri available in servings of 6, 9 or 12 pieces. Wash it down with a little ‘super-chilled’ Asahi, and follow up with some larger dishes like the wagyu steak skewers, deep fried rock oysters and tofu kitsune udon.
Details: 22-23 Woodstock Street, London, W1C 2AR | 31 Beauchamp Place, London, SW3 1NU | From £30.20pp for sashimi only | Make a booking at Chisou
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Kazu | Fitzrovia
Kazu is perched on Charlotte Street, one of London’s most densely-packed dining hubs. So if you’ve already done the hard work of making the decision of where to eat (and you end up at Kazu), let the chefs take care of your sushi order. They’ll put together a selection of three, five or ten different kinds of sashimi, which you can watch them expertly slice up before your eyes at the corner dining counter.
Details: 64 Charlotte Street, London, W1T 4QD | £33+ between two | Make a booking at Kazu
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FORMAL OMAKASE RESTAURANTS
These are spots that follow the more traditional omakase model – restaurants tend to be much more intimate, with just a few stools around a shared counter, where the chef will serve you directly. They’ll likely only offer one or two sittings a night, so expect them to be more expensive and harder to book – but also very, very special.
Endo at the Rotunda | White City
Endo at the Rotunda is one of those restaurants that is show-stopping in every respect. Firstly, the setting: perched at the top of the old BBC television studios in White City, it has amazing views pouring in through the floor-to-ceiling windows – or rather, floor to beautiful, cloud-like folds of paper windows. The Michelin-starred food matches the heavenly atmosphere: third-generation sushi chef Endo Kazutoshi assiduously prepares an 18 course omakase menu for just ten guests each sitting, tailoring the dishes not just according to what’s good that day, but to your personal tastes as well. And he wants the experience to be like a supperclub, even commissioning a curved counter so that you can chat to your fellow guests. We think you’ll have plenty to talk about.
Details: White City House Television Centre, 101 Wood Lane, W12 7FR | £275pp | Make a booking at Endo at the Rotunda
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Sushi Tetsu | Clerkenwell
A teeny tiny sushi spot tucked down a Clerkenwell alleyway, which feels more like a supperclub hosted by husband and wife duo Toru and Harumi Takahashi than a restaurant. Reservations here are like gold dust, but with a little perseverance and possibly multiple browser tabs, you’ll be able to score a seat at the counter where Toru-san deftly prepares (and occasionally blowtorches) 20 beautiful slices of fish before your eyes.
Details: 12 Jerusalem Passage, Finsbury, EC1V 4JP | Around £187pp | Make a booking at Sushi Tetsu (released for the week ahead on Mondays at 12pm)
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Juno | Notting Hill
Of all the places to put an omakase bar, ‘hidden at the back of a Mexican restaurant’ isn’t exactly the first place you’d think of. Which is what makes it so well hidden, probably. But in any case, the food at Juno is first class.
There are just two chefs behind the petite counter, and they’ll introduce themselves, and then expound upon a love of Mexican food and the ways that they take Mexican spices, particularly from Oaxaca, and integrate them into the day’s fish – which changes literally with the tides, depending on the catch from the two dayboat fishermen they work with.
Details: Inside Los Mochis, 2-4 Farmer St, W8 7SN | £180 (sake pairing £95) | Make a booking at Juno
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Sushi on Jones | King’s Cross
Sushi on Jones started out doing omakase for New Yorkers. That meant serving it up from a kiosk, on the street, with a 30 minute timeframe. It was a colossal hit. Now they’ve opened their first international branch in Goods Way, the food, drink and music hub right by the canal in King’s Cross. The setting’s a little more refined here – a low-lit counter for eight, indoors – but they’re keeping the emphasis on speed, serving you 12 pieces of sushi in 45 minutes. And it’s the most delicious fast food you’ll have ever eaten – diligently sourced, beautifully prepared, and served up to you amid a flurry of chatter and sake.
Details: 11 Goods Way, London N1C 4DP | £68pp (12 courses)/£100pp (20 courses) | Make a booking at Sushi on Jones
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Akira | Kensington
You’ll find chef Shimizu Akira’s restaurant bedded in to the first floor of Japan House, Kensington’s hub of Japanese culture that’s home to exhibitions, shops, screenings and talks. He operates according to his ‘trinity of cooking’ principles: food, tableware and presentation. That means meticulously sourcing ingredients; hand-picking the glassware and crockery from artisans across Japan; and showcasing the kind of theatrical flair made famous in London by Benihana, with dishes seared with a lick of flame from the robata grill. The vast menu here – spanning from raw, to grilled, to fried – can be neatly condensed with the omakase option, available either purely for sushi, or with Akira-san’s pick of the grilled dishes included too.
Details: Japan House, 101-111 Kensington High Street, London, W8 5SA | £80/100pp (3/5 courses) | Make a booking at Akira
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Iné | Hampstead
Iné hits the sweet spot if you want to try an omakase experience, but a) don’t want to shell out hundreds of pounds, and b) still want to feel like you’re in the thick of a buzzy restaurant. Their sushi counter sits up at the front of the restaurant, where you’ll get to indulge in a 17 course menu served directly by chef Meng – but still enjoy the atmosphere of the other diners ordering à la carte at the back of the room. Put together by chef patron Takuya Watanabe, the menu is varied and seasonal – and still pretty pricey (this is Hampstead, after all). However it’s worth knowing that the lunchtime omakase menu served on Saturdays is half the price – but not half the courses.
Details: 16 Hampstead High Street, NW3 1PX | £130pp (17 course dinner)/£65pp (12 course lunch) | Make a booking at Iné
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Taku | Mayfair
Of course, if you’re ready to go full throttle on old-school omakase, Iné’s older Michelin-starred sibling Taku awaits. It’s nose-bleedingly expensive, but it’s also fantastic: you’ll step into a sleeve of a space that feels like a kind of modern, subterranean cavern, where you’ll sit inches from the chefs as they prepare an exquisite 20 course menu. One tip: don’t go for the pricier Prestige menu. It feels like it’s mostly there to cater for Mayfair types with deep pockets, but the lashings of caviar and truffle don’t really add anything to the sushi – if anything they trample over the original, more delicate flavours.
Details: 36 Albemarle Street, London, W1S 4JE | £160pp (lunchtimes only, 17 courses)/£300 (20 courses)/£400 Prestige menu (premium ingredients & additional courses) | No dietary requirements accommodated | Make a reservation at Taku
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Cubé | Mayfair
Cubé is intimate, with a sushi counter seating just 7 guests at a time. Which isn’t so unusual for omakase restaurants – what is unusual is that a full service here is just a shade over the £100 mark. You’ll be treated to two appetisers, ten kinds of nigiri sushi (fish layered over a little bullet of rice), temaki (a sushi hand roll), and a dessert. Of course, exploring the extensive menu of sake, Japanese whisky and picks from the owner’s own personal wine cellar, that bill might tack up a notch or two…
Details: 4 Blenheim Street, London, W1S 1LB | £108pp/£78 at lunchtime | Make a booking at Cubé
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Mayha | Marylebone
Mayha’s 11 seat counter is shaded by a canopy of twinkling flower-shaped lights – and even that’s not enough to outshine the elegant sushi dishes placed directly in front of you by chefs Jurek Wasio and Yuichi Nakaya. The omakase menu here starts with sashimi and sushi before building up to heftier rice bowls, but you can also book in for a gourmet bentō lunchbox if you’re after something lighter. Downstairs in the intimate cocktail bar, there’s also the option to order a lighter seafood set menu paired with matching sake…–
Details: 43 Chiltern Street, Marylebone, W1U 6LS | £100 (lunch) / £220pp | Make a booking at Mayha
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Humble Chicken 2.0 | Soho
Angelo Sato’s Michelin-starred restaurant started out as a ‘beak to tail’ chicken spot, putting a zero-waste twist on yakitori skewers. But now he’s turning his attentions to omakase dining, offering a 16-course tasting menu that puts less of an emphasis on sushi than most other places, and instead turns out quirky dishes like avocado-wrapped mussels, spicy miso beef tartare, and shokupan milk bread with chicken parfait, all inspired by his own Japanese-European heritage.
Details: 54 Frith St, London W1D 4SJ | £185pp (Sat lunch £135 for 12 courses) | Make a booking at Humble Chicken | Please note most dietaries cannot be accommodated
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Takahashi | Wimbledon
A restaurant experience that you’ll remember for years afterwards. Husband-and-wife team Nobuhisa and Yuko Takahashi run this relaxed and intimate Wimbledon eatery, serving Japanese dishes with a gentle Mediterranean influence. An extensive sushi and sashimi menu is bolstered by ‘tapas’ dishes of grilled king crab leg, crispy pork belly with miso and lightly battered vegetable tempura – but plump for the omakase and you’ll get a selection of all the best dishes on offer that day, from raw swimmers to grilled meat and sweet desserts, with the option to pair it all with specially-selected sake.
Details: 228 Merton Road London SW19 1EQ | £150 | Make a booking at Takahashi
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Maru | Mayfair
Maru comes to you from third-generation sushi chef Taiji Maruyama, who’s left the day to day running to his highly talented head chef Yasuhiro Ochiai. You’ll walk in, take your seat at the counter (there were ten, but feeling that wouldn’t allow for enough time with each diner he quickly reduced it to six) and Ochiai will personally prepare and serve you a 20 course omakase menu directly over the counter. It’s almost entirely put together with British ingredients, and includes a few regular highlights like the king crab, served in a silver bowl cast from the shell itself…
Details: 18 Shepherd Market, W1J 7QH | £210pp (£160 Saturday lunchtimes) | Make a booking at Maru
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Kurisu Omakase | Brixton
We’re fairly sure you’re actually more likely to win the actual lottery than score a seat at this super-popular omakase experience. See, it’s not actually a restaurant. Owner Chris (who puts the ‘Kurisu’ in Kurisu Omakase) instead hosts at his parents’ restaurant, Ichiban Sushi, that’s been around since 1999. He’s been soaking up skills during all that time, later heading off to train at the Tokyo Sushi Academy and returning armed not just with technique, but some genius-level creativity that brings a new twist to the genre. On occasional nights, when the restaurant’s closed, he welcomes eight guests up to his makeshift sushi counter, telling stories, handing over exquisite slabs of fish, and occasionally getting the blowtorch out. Much like Sushi Tetsu, getting a seat is a sweaty palm-inducing ordeal involving good timing and some F5 button-mashing, but if you can get them, it’s more than worth it.
Details: Ichiban Sushi, 58D Atlantic Road, Brixton, SW9 8PY | £150pp | Make a booking at Kurisu Omakase
Prefer to be master of your own destiny? Check out these other great sushi restaurants (with menus)