Sushi Kanesaka
45 Park Lane
London
UK
W1K 1PN
What’s the vibe?
Whatever you think sushi is, forget it. This is not mass-produced cucumber maki sweating in its plastic coffin, nor is it a cream cheese-smothered salmon roll that’s spent hours aboard a revolving conveyor belt. At Sushi Kanesaka, you eat the Edomae style of sushi – the most traditional, elegant, and unembellished, without a crispy onion or tin of tuna in sight.
A trip here promises total immersion into the wondrous world of omakase from heralded sushi artisan Shinji Kanesaka and the utmost intimacy as you dine at either a nine or four-seater counter concealed behind a wooden door at 45 Park Lane. On the menu is a 17-piece culinary odyssey, where the spectacle of food preparation unfolding before you is transfixing. So much so, that you’ll forget to speak to your fellow diner altogether. It’s a performance from start to finish, one where you happen to put small, fishy, delicious things into your mouth. Watch, eyes wide, as head chef and Kanesaka’s protégé Kirotaka Wada helms the operation, gliding a forged iron knife through plump tuna belly, grating gnarly wasabi roots into fragrant piles and instinctively shaping sushi rice into neat oblongs with the pat of nimble fingers, ready to be draped with opaline slivers of fish.
As with all culinary epics based in Mayfair, a hefty price tag accompanies. Specifically, £420 – making this the UK’s most expensive menu. It’s by no means a sum to downplay but one that’s less frightening when you realise the quality of the produce you’re eating, the number of courses consumed, the mastery that goes into forming each morsel and the fact there’s (give or take) a 1:1 ratio of diners to chefs, sommeliers and hosts. You’ll eat off a single piece of Japanese Kiso Hinoki (cedarwood), drink sake from hand-cut, whisper-thin glasses by Horiguchi Kiriko, and experience a level of escapism rarely found in a London restaurant. Plus, it’s still cheaper than a flight to Tokyo. Bargain?
What to eat?
Decision is taken out of your mitts and placed into the palms of Kirotaka, where the menu is up to 20 courses and never the same on any two days. Here, ingredients are treated not only with respect but like celebrities. Chefs parade glossy blue lobster, hunks of A3 wagyu Kobe beef and glistening fillets of Canadian tuna in front of you to gawk at before they’re prepared just centimetres from your plate. You sit poised, fingers hovered over chopsticks, ready to pounce in one fell swoop.
The menu kicks off with a soothing, savoury egg custard called chawanmushi that’s pitted with flecks of white crab meat and served in a dainty teacup; followed by firm, fleshy pieces of steamed abalone and octopus. The latter, from Portuguese waters, is massaged for two hours before cooking to achieve a tender, melting texture – a fate we’d all hope to find ourselves in.
The following pieces are various forms of nigiri, handrolls, maki and gunkan with the same foundation of warm, lightly vinegared sushi rice; some festooned with a fiery lick of wasabi or whisper of yuzu, others jacketed in a dark sheath of nori. The nigiri arrives swaddled in fatty slices of Canadian tuna, gleaming prawns, seabass, golden eye snapper and cuttlefish while Kirotaka fills the handroll with a lacquered piece of eel kabayaki. The gunkan is jewelled with a crown of fish roe and pearls of beluga caviar, while the only maki on the menu is sizable, stuffed with a generous dose of negitoro – a minced, fatty tuna. Perhaps skydiving or seeing the pyramids are on your bucket list, but eating seafood this good makes a strong contender for a late addition.
Beyond sushi are other equally impressive dishes. Namely, the binchotan of grilled A3 wagyu Kobe beef – the champagne equivalent of the beef world from the Kansai region – served with wasabi and shio and the ebifurai of Scottish lobster coated in a gossamer-like tempura batter, accompanied by an unctuous Japanese tartare sauce.
All performances must sadly come to a close, and the meal enters its final phase with a thick slice of tamakoyaki (Japanese omelette) and a bowl of miso soup that sits gently on a belly full of fish. The sweet concluding tidbits are white strawberries covered with mochi and a cleansing half-moon of musk melon dissected with a thin, wooden prong.
What to drink?
There’s tea, wine and beer on the menu, but you’d be a fool to order anything besides the sake pairing. There’s a Japanese proverb that says sake doesn’t get into fights with food, and it’s true – it’s the perfect match for omakase because its clean, delicate flavour doesn’t interfere with the multitude of courses.
The sake sommelier chooses the pairings depending on the menu – we were given the Koueigiku Shuzo Anastasia Green, an unpasteurised sake with a floral, gentle flavour, before continuing with two punchier, more expressive tipples Choryo Tarusake Yamahai and Sohomare Kimoto Tokubetsu Junki.
The bottom line
If money is no object and you have a hankering for sampling the best sushi experience in the UK right now – Sushi Kanesaka is a no brainer.
