Kiku, Mayfair

Mr Oil and Mr Vinegar have been to one of Mayfair’s most long-established restaurants – Kiku, which has been serving unpretentious Japanese food for more than 30 years.

MrV: I think what I like most about Kiku is that it hasn’t followed the poncey fashion for modernising the Japanese concept that everyone else has done since Nobu.

MrO: I know what you mean, but I do wish you’d stop pronouncing Nobu as ‘Knob-you’ – it’s very childish and most people stopped saying it shortly after the place opened – nearly 15 years ago. On that basis you may as well call this place 'Kick-you'.

MrV: Good idea.

MrO: Ow!

MrV: It was your idea. Anyway, I’ll call it what I like but that’s beside my point about the Europeanisation of Japanese restaurants like Roka and Zuma and many others. There’s nothing wrong with them doing it, I suppose, but I prefer the simple, slightly Spartan approach.

MrO: That’s not what you said when you sat down at Kiku.

MrV: Well, you can take the Spartan approach too far, of course, as they may have done with those chairs. There was nothing at all to those seat cushions. I may as well have been sitting directly onto the wood. Very hard on my poor bottom.

MrO: It looks substantial enough to withstand any deprivation. How was your salmon sashimi?

MrV: Perfect. People think there’s not much to sashimi but it’s all in the buying and the slicing and I have no quibbles over the sourcing or the presentation.

MrO: High praise from you. My sushi rolls were very good, too.

MrV: Most British people think sushi rolls are a rather brutish clump of vaguely flavoured rice, thanks to the gullet-blocking supermarket and sandwich shop versions.

MrO: Kiku’s was a great deal more delicate. After that I had the beef teriyaki, which was absolutely delicious. Very good quality beef and cooked exactly as I’d asked them.

MrV: I was also quite impressed by the silver cod. The marinade of sake and miso paste transform what I’ve always found to be rather a dull fish. I can never understand why cod stocks are running out so fast when it’s so dreary to eat. Except when the Japanese smarten it up.

MrO: I loved the prawn tempura. So many places get this wrong by over-cooking it.

MrV: 60 to 90 seconds, depending on how many pieces you have in the oil, is all that’s required. I agree, it was very good.

MrO: There seems to be something wrong with you. You are not your usual curmudgeonly self.

MrV: It may have been all that chilled sake. It seems to leave me in a lighter mood than I’m left in by claret.

MrO: Then we must come here more often.

Mr Oil and Mr Vinegar drank two vodka-and-tonics, two bottles of chilled sake and six dishes – most from the main courses section of the menu – at a total cost of £187.99.

Kiku
17 Half Moon Street
Mayfair
London
W1J 7BE

+44 (0) 207 499 4208/9


kikumayfair@kikurestaurant.co.uk

http://www.kikurestaurant.co.uk