Kirazu

Stumbled upon this place on my lunch break — tucked away behind Piccadilly Circus, so I stopped in for a look see and grabbed a takeaway. The only takeaway dish available was a £5.50 bento which was pretty basic, almost underwhelming, rice with a little bit of salad and a small portion of thinly sliced beef and onions? Was bit like home cooking. I’m giving them 3 stars for the overall takeaway experience, the lady was very friendly and the décor was cute. Will try and drop by again and dine in to see if there are better dishes. I would’ve uploaded a pic of the takeaway but I fear it won’t look very appetising and might not be fair for them, it wasn’t mind blowing but it was ok.

It is really difficult to find a place where we can enjoy an authentic Japanese food… but Kirazu is the best one I would totally recommend to anyone who wants to find true Japanese food.
The place is a little too small — you might have to take a tiny table by the window facing the street. But they serve really good Japanese small dishes — I loved tempura, and vinegared mackerel, onigiri (rice ball), tempura soba.
Last time, I went there with a Japanese female friend and we paid around £40 each after feeling really stuffed! The price was not that bad for London. Each dish is really small so it might get pricey for non-​Japanese people if they feel they have to order more than we did.

Cute little find near Piccadilly Circus. We happened to stumble upon this place after dinner and dessert, but saw that they had black sesame ice cream and green tea latte… I HAD TO STOP! Totally worth it!
The place is super rustic and homey. The staff and chef are really friendly. When half of the restaurant is filled with Japanese consumers, you know you’re in for some good authentic food!
I love black sesame. The ice cream was raging in flavor! Definitely coming back! Even if it’s just for dessert! :)

Wow. What a fabulous meal! We sat at the window and had a great people watching view but we were too into the lovely food to take much of it in.
We shared 8 dishes, although I can’t seem to remember the last one!
— Salmon jaw: I really liked this, mostly because it reminded me of what I’d had growing up. There’s not a lot of fish but it’s on the bone which makes all the difference and ups the flavour.
— Burdock: awesome pieces of braised burdock topped with eel. This was really delicious
— Takoyaki: three lovely octopus balls topped with bonito flakes. Really good, tasty versions of Japanese street food
— Taro root balls: these didn’t really work for me. There were 5 balls of deep fried taro root. I think I was expected something akin to taro root balls that you find in dim sum. You could definitely taste the taro root but I thought overall, it was a bit bland
— Cockles: cold cockles dish that was marinated in a lovely salty sweet sauce. I could have definitely eaten more of these
— Miso eggplant: kind of standard fare. My friend who divvied it all up said that is should have been cooked a bit more.
Overall, a really lovely meal. The venue is small and they do cram people in. Get there early so you’re not bumping elbows against the person next to you. They take reservations!

Amazing food. Seriously fantastic. But the service is horrendous. Asked for my check three times and it toon over 40 min to get. Even then there were four items on the bill that I hadn’t ordered. If the service was on par with the cooking, this place would have a line out the door all do at every day.

the place is good and I would give it (5) stars, but they really need another sushi chef. problem is: there’s no room! the place seats about (22), but with the current staff, it’s best with (12). it’s cozy and the staff is awesome as well as the food, but the wait for your food detracts from the experience. however, I liked it and it’s worth a visit when you’re in Piccadilly Circus — I mean I got drunk!

A little cramped inside, but thankfully the food is fantastic! The sushi rice was cooked just right (so many places in London do it badly) and there’s a great mix of traditional and adventurous Japanese food to order. The £££ rating doesn’t seem quite right either, maybe 2.5 our of 3 since it’s not cheap but not extortionate like Nobu either!
To be honest, I was sold as soon as I popped my head in the door — the smell of the cooking is amazing since it’s cooked on one side of the dining area rather than in a kitchen at the back. So if you need convincing, just pop your head in the door one day!

Ate here with friends on a busy Saturday night. And while the food was quite good, I will not be going back, here’s why:
–extremely poor service: the restaurant is pretty small so although we were prepared to be patient, the service didn’t pick up even as the restaurant emptied out. we were the last party there and nearly two hours after placing our order, we were still reminding/​asking the staff about various dishes. again, the food was good, but it felt like we were begging them to bring it to us, even when the restaurant clearly wasn’t at it’s peak/​busiest time.
–prices/​portions: with the tapas theme, the portions are small and the price adds up quickly ordering so many to get a full meal. add that with the extremely slow service, and it made for a bad experience overall. after spending about £20, i was still pretty hungry. i didn’t want to order/​spend more, i just wanted to get out of there.
–suggestions: change to full service. stop asking customers to get their own water, cutlery, and taking their order to the register. send a waitress to the table to take the order down instead of having customers mark on a paper. this whole set up seems to creates chaos and disorganization amongst the staff. maybe have one person dedicated to takeout and the other two people running the tables? there’s nothing unique about this place to suggest that breaking from a typical restaurant service model is worthwhile.
the steamed prawn dumplings, seaweed salad, chicken teriyaki wrap/​pancake, & eel were so freaking good, but just not worth the long and stressful experience of eating here :(

We read about this place in Timeout and walked past it several times in Soho. I am delighted to see what looks like an izakaya (can be loosely translated to mean a Japanese pub) in central London as I have not come across one so far. Then came saturday afternoon and we were wondering where to take our friends in town to dinner and Kirazu came to mind. I guess it was still relatively new when we visited so I had no difficulty getting a table on a saturday afternoon. The place itself is tiny, and holds no more than 25 people. The menu describes its dishes as japanese tapas, and that’s what an izakaya is, a homey, family style pub with tapas that goes with your sake or shochu. I like the interior — a lot of wood and it’s like stepping into somebody’s kitchen, you can see all the pots and pans and the chef preparing your dishes behind the counter, warm and intimate, just how an izakaya should be like. We thought the specials on the blackboard looked a lot more interesting than the menu items so we ordered most of the specials and a few of the items from the menu. We had: seafood croquette, seared beef salad, roasted pork belly, grilled eel, tofu with miso paste, seabass sashimi, grilled fish, grilled rice dumpling, roasted duck and a classic salt ramen. It may seem a lot of food for four but the dishes are small so you need to order a lot to share, which is fun coz you get to try them all. I have to say all the dishes are well executed, ingredients are extremely fresh and seasonings are flavorful. I particularly enjoyed the roasted duck which was very juicy, and the really fresh sea bass sashimi. The ramen is the weakest, but I don’t think that’s what you should go for in an izakaya. I will definitely go back and try more of their specials. I did notice a problem with their logistics, service was kind of chaotic and on the slow side. These may be teething problems. Also I noticed only one person preparing ALL the dishes behind the counter (at one point he had to leave the counter and went into the kitchen to cook our ramen). They need to rethink logistics and division of labor. Other than that, we had a very enjoyable evening of good food and nice conversation, in a cozy setting. I tried to make a booking again today and was told that it’s fully booked till the end of the month! So I guess the place is getting popular, hopefully they will be able to keep up with the high quality.

The ramen revolution continues apace in London. Thanks to Anton P for giving me the heads up on Kirazu, which recently opened in the heart of Soho
The unassuming storefront opens into a compact restaurant with some window stool seating, a large communal table and some smaller tables. Staffed by Japanese speaking Japanese servers, it does have the feel of an authentic Japanese restaurant
Looking at the menu, I would hesitate to call this a ramen restaurant. They only have miso or soy/​salt ramen without the ability to customise your order. However, they do have an extensive starter/​side dish selection, which is further supplemented by daily specials
My preference with ramen is the rich tonkotsu broth, which does take the most effort to boil the bones for hours if not days to extract the rich fatty flavour. As this wasn’t available, I opted for the miso ramen. I also chose the grilled pork belly with miso from the specials board — I love pork belly
The pork belly arrived first. I had seen the chap at the bar torch it with a blow torch prior to serving. Now, I love my pork belly either stewed until everything is tender and unctuous or roasted with a crispy skin. This preparation was neither. The flesh was a bit tough. The skin wasn’t crispy and the blow torch effect couldn’t really be felt or tasted. Disappointing
The miso ramen was served with a small bowl of sesame seeds with a mortar to crush them. Nice fun idea but I don’t think the sesame seeds tasted any different from being ground and the mortar kept falling over as it wasn’t weighted very well. As someone who prefers tonkotsu, I found the miso broth a bit thin. The yellow noodles however were perfectly cooked with the right amount of chew. At £11, I was however severely unimpressed at the tiny amounts of pork mince — initially I thought they had forgotten to put any chashu in my bowl by mistake until I found the 4 or 5 lumps of mince
Unfortunately, not my most enjoyable meal though some of the other starters sounded nice and did look nice on other tables but with so much stiff competition around, I fear for them

We stumbled into this place out of desperation on a Thursday night trying to eat somewhere in Soho and not wait on a ridiculous queue.
The place is super-​cute with a counter in the front, a communal table and then smaller tables in the back.
The waitress barely spoke English – we had a few mishaps like bringing over a bottle of wine instead of a glass.
The food was excellent – well executed, interesting, do I dare say Japanese tapas?
Not your usual sushi or ramen place – definitely worth a stop-​in if you crave authentic Japanese.