You don’t go to Maru for a meal.
That is, you don’t go here to satisfy hunger. Of course, it helps, but it’s not the main purpose of the experience. The main purpose of the experience is to show you just what’s possible with food.
The restaurant comes to us from chef Taiji Maruyama who runs the whole operation with head chef Yasuhiro Ochiai. Maruyama sources the ingredients and creates the dishes, while Ochiai cooks the food, serves it up, and talks you through it. Maruyama even makes some of the crockery himself. That should give you a good sense of the attention to detail being paid here.
And all this, for a restaurant that has just six seats. There’s space for ten along the simple wooden bar, but Maruyama thought that would be too much to give everyone adequate attention. Pull up one of the comfortable leather seats, and to your left, you can see the fish hanging patiently in the dry ageing box. In front of you is a small team of chefs, standing behind a chopping block so big it would probably be allowed to ride rollercoasters. It’s time for a brief introduction, and thus the experience begins.
You won’t see a menu. If there’s anything you can’t eat, it’s best to say so, otherwise you’re just getting whatever the team has prepared for that day. This is, after all, omakase. Here, that means taking the best produce that the British seas & soil have to offer (there’s a lot from Cornwall) and pouring it all into a 20 course dinner that changes every night.
Obviously we can’t therefore say what will or won’t be on the plates on any given night, but there are a few signatures which are likely to stick around. You may well find yourself presented with a stunning bullet of 8 day dry-aged, hay-smoked Hampshire trout with trout egg sauce. The Cornish king crab is served in a silver bowl made from the cast of a king crab shell, which they make themselves. And thanks to an infusion of crab stock jelly, it tastes like the most intensely rich crustacean flavour you’ve ever had. A Japanese turnip dish is made with a soil stock – yes, soil – pulled from the ground the turnip grew in, here in the UK. It’s thick, nourishing, rich, and an idea that simply wouldn’t occur to almost any other chef.
One of Maruyama’s other highly creative notions is the garden salad, which comes as a white plate dotted with small dollops of puree, each representing one of the cardinal flavour profiles – there’s sweet (carrot), sour (raspberry), etc. Next to it is a bowl of vegetables that you can lay onto the plate yourself with the help of kitchen tweezers, meaning you can create literally hundreds of possible flavour combinations, stretching through every flavour your tongue is capable of tasting. It’s truly ingenious.
Of course, this being a sushi restaurant first & foremost, there are plenty of raw swimmers. You’ll get to see the day’s tuna (the one thing impossible to source from our waters) arranged in its different cuts, before the chefs delicately slice them up. You’ll get everything from fatty o toro, to mineral-rich akami, all laid on a bed of golden rice with a soprano note of wasabi singing through it. That wasabi, by the way, is real wasabi (rarer than you think) grown right here in Dorchester.
Finally, things finish off with some dark chocolate ‘monaka’ paired with white egg ice cream, and all sprayed with a sea salt mist. It’s recommended to take one bite of one, and one bite of the other, alternating the darkly rich, and creamily sweet flavours. Your chopsticks will then be cleaned and wrapped up for you to take home, along with some other goodies.
Then you see the menu.
NOTE: Maru is open now. Dinner is served in two sittings, at 5.30pm & 8.30pm, and costs £210pp. There’s also a shorter Saturday lunchtime service at 12.30pm, with fewer courses for £160pp. You can find out more, and make a booking (3 months in advance max) on the Maru website.
Maru | 18 Shepherd Market, W1J 7QH
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