Best Japanese Restaurants in London 2026

Endo Kazutoshi's sixteen-seat hinoki counter is the best sushi in Europe. Book ten weeks out for closing a deal.

Endo Kazutoshi is a third-generation sushi chef who trained at Zuma and Sumosan before opening his own counter on the eighth floor of the former BBC Television Centre in White City. The two-Michelin-starred room is a single sixteen-seat counter of two-hundred-year-old hinoki cypress, lit from above and surrounded on three sides by a kitchen Endo runs personally most services. The Edomae sushi omakase runs roughly twenty courses and costs £350 per person before drinks. The tuna is dry-aged for up to four weeks; the rice is served at body temperature; the nikiri is brushed seconds before each piece lands.

The signature course is the otoro nigiri brushed with aged soy and finished with a single grain of Hokkaido yuzu zest. The kohada (gizzard shad) is the technical course every sushi diner should watch closely. Endo cures it three days, scores it precisely, and serves it as the second cooked piece in the sequence. The clear soup at the close of the meal, built from a bonito stock and a single yuba, is the quietest course on the menu and the one you will remember longest.

Endo at the Rotunda is the right answer for closing a deal, a milestone proposal, or a serious solo evening at a counter where the chef will actually engage. Book through SevenRooms when the window opens at 09:00 London time, ten weeks ahead. Single seats appear on Tuesday afternoons when the kitchen processes cancellations. The wine list is short and expensive; the sake list is the better play.

Nine seats on New Burlington Place. The most rigorous Edomae counter in London — book the late seating.

The Araki opened on New Burlington Place in Mayfair in 2014 when Mitsuhiro Araki moved his three-starred Ginza counter to London. After Araki himself returned to Japan, his protégé Marty Lau took the room over and held two Michelin stars through 2024–2025. The nine-seat counter is built from a single piece of hinoki and the room is unmarked from the street. The omakase runs around fifteen pieces of nigiri plus three or four cooked courses and costs £380 per person.

The kitchen ages its bluefin tuna for two to three weeks and brings the rice to a temperature warmer than most London counters — closer to the body-heat ideal of Tokyo Edomae. The shime saba (cured mackerel) and the akami zuke (soy-marinated lean tuna) are the technical pieces to evaluate the chef on. The uni course, almost always Hokkaido bafun in winter and Murotsu in summer, is the dish that justifies the spend on its own.

The Araki is the harder reservation than Endo and demands more of the diner. The late seating, 21:00, runs longer and quieter; the chef is more conversational once the first sitting clears. Skip this room if you wanted variety: this is one cuisine, one format, one chef. The wine list is small. Drink sake or warm tea and let the rice carry the meal.

Yannick Alléno's London bet on a sushi counter inside Pavyllon — the cleanest hotel sushi in Mayfair right now.

Pavyllon London opened in 2023 on the first floor of the Four Seasons Park Lane, with chef Yannick Alléno bringing his Paris three-star format to London. The sushi counter — twelve seats inside the larger Pavyllon room — runs as a separate experience with its own omakase menu, priced around £180 for fifteen pieces of nigiri plus a soup and tamago close. The fish is flown in from Toyosu three times a week and the rice is short-grain Yamagata.

The standout course is the chu-toro nigiri with a wasabi sourced from Japanese suppliers (not the Surrey horseradish many London rooms substitute). The shrimp course — botan ebi with a yuzu-kosho dab — and the engawa (flounder fin) are the kitchen's most controlled pieces. The hotel setting means the room is brighter and more conversational than the dedicated counters; this is the right pick if you want a sushi-led meal without the silence of a hardline Edomae room.

Solo diners do particularly well at this counter — single seats are not the difficult booking they are at Endo or Araki, and the kitchen pace accommodates a slower meal. The hotel's wine cellar is the deepest in the city and the sommelier will run a sake-and-champagne pairing that works against the fish more cleverly than the standard sake-only flight.

London's only serious kaiseki room. Chef Tom Sellers' Kyoto-trained crew run twelve courses to no clock — book for an anniversary.

Umu opened on Bruton Place in 2004 and has held one Michelin star without interruption since 2008. The current head chef studied at Kikunoi in Kyoto and runs Umu's kaiseki menu in the traditional twelve-course format: starter (sakizuke), clear soup, sashimi, grilled, simmered, fried, rice, soup, pickle, dessert, tea. The full kaiseki costs £195 per person; the shorter eight-course version is £145.

Specific dishes worth booking around: the Hokkaido sea urchin custard (uni chawanmushi) served in a yuzu shell during the soup course; the bincho-grilled Kobe beef sliced thinly enough to wrap a single Tokyo radish leaf; and the matcha-and-azuki dessert finished with a torched mochi at the table. The sake list, selected by an in-house sommelier, runs to more than 160 labels including small-production junmai daiginjo that rarely appear in Europe.

Umu is the right choice when sushi is wrong — when the occasion calls for the slow, ceremonial pace of kaiseki rather than the quick fire of a nigiri counter. The room is warmly lit, the booths are private, and the noise level is conversation-easy. Anniversaries land here particularly well; the staff will pre-script a torched ice-cream course if you give them notice.

Daisuke Hayashi's Marylebone kaiseki room earned its Michelin star in 2022 — book the counter for a quiet anniversary.

Roketsu sits on a quiet stretch of Seymour Place in Marylebone, behind a discreet stone-clad façade and a Japanese maple. Chef Daisuke Hayashi trained at Kikunoi in Kyoto for nine years before opening Roketsu in 2020. The restaurant earned its one Michelin star in 2022 and has held it without slipping since. The kaiseki menu costs £210 per person and runs thirteen courses paced over two and a half hours.

The room is built from a single hinoki countertop seating eight, plus a small private tatami room for four. The fish course typically features Cornish turbot poached at 52°C in a dashi cut with Yamagata yuzu peel; the binchotan grill course rotates between Iberico pork from Spain and Wagyu rump from Japan; the rice course is cooked in a clay donabe at the counter and served from the pot still bubbling. The matcha is whisked individually before each diner at the close.

Solo diners at Roketsu are seated at the counter; the chef will lean in to explain courses if the room is quiet and let the meal run silently if it is not. The booking system is direct: email the restaurant six to eight weeks ahead. The room takes only fifteen covers across counter and tatami — once full, it is full.

Shinji Kanesaka's first counter outside Tokyo, inside 45 Park Lane — the most exacting nigiri in Mayfair, and priced for it.

Shinji Kanesaka holds two Michelin stars at his Ginza counter in Tokyo and opened his first international outpost at 45 Park Lane in late 2023. The London room is twelve seats around a single hinoki counter on the seventh floor of the Dorchester Collection's Park Lane hotel. The omakase costs £420 per person and runs around twenty pieces of nigiri plus four cooked courses. The fish is flown three times a week from Toyosu and the kitchen does not substitute when Toyosu does not deliver.

The kitchen's signature is its tuna progression: akami zuke (soy-marinated lean), chu-toro, otoro, and a closing piece of negitoro with chopped scallion. Each is brushed with the house nikiri — a soy reduction with mirin and sake that the kitchen reduces daily. The kohada arrives as the second piece and is the test of the meal: if the cure has been judged correctly, it is at the same temperature as the rice and the vinegar is invisible against the fish.

Sushi Kanesaka is the most expensive sushi in London and the most demanding of the diner. The pace is rapid by London standards — twenty pieces in under ninety minutes — and the chef expects the diner to keep up. Skip this if you want a leisurely sushi evening; book Endo or Pavyllon instead. The room is right for closing a deal or for a proposal where the spend itself is part of the message.

Toru Takahashi's seven-seat Clerkenwell counter is the city's quietest cult sushi room. Book the moment the window opens.

Sushi Tetsu sits on Jerusalem Passage off St John Street in Clerkenwell, behind a wooden door with a small brass plate and no other signage. Chef Toru Takahashi and his wife Harumi have run the seven-seat counter together since 2012, with no expansion, no second location, and a reservation system that releases two months at a time and sells out within minutes. The omakase is £155 per person and runs about fifteen pieces of nigiri plus three or four small dishes.

The kitchen ages its tuna for ten to fourteen days, briefly torches its mackerel with a binchotan stick, and brushes a house nikiri reduced from soy, mirin and katsuobushi. The signature piece is the anago (sea eel) glazed with the kitchen's sweet tsume and served warm as the second-to-last nigiri. The tamago is dense and savoury, more omelette than custard, and arrives as the final piece before the meal closes with a clear shijimi clam soup.

For a solo diner, Sushi Tetsu is unmatched value in London. The counter is intimate, the chef will engage if you engage, and the format works for one in a way that almost no other London sushi room does. The booking is the hardest part: set a calendar alert for the 09:00 release date and book the moment the form opens.

Takuya Watanabe's sixteen-seat Mayfair counter earned a Michelin star in 2023 — the city's most relaxed top-tier omakase.

Taku opened on Albemarle Street in Mayfair in 2022 with chef-patron Takuya Watanabe, formerly of Sushi Saito in Tokyo. The sixteen-seat counter earned one Michelin star within fifteen months of opening — one of the fastest awards in recent British history. The omakase costs £215 per person and runs around eighteen pieces of nigiri plus four cooked courses. The fish comes from Toyosu twice weekly and from Cornish day boats for whitefish.

Watanabe's style is slightly less austere than Endo or Kanesaka; the rice is softer, the soy slightly sweeter, and the kitchen will adapt the menu to dietary requests within reason. The signature pieces are the otoro with smoked salt, the bafun uni from Hokkaido served on warmed rice in winter, and the closing tamago made fresh each service. The Cornish turbot course, brushed with a yuzu butter and lightly torched, is the kitchen's strongest British-Japanese hybrid.

Taku is the right mid-tier choice: the experience of a serious Edomae counter without the formality of Araki or the price of Kanesaka. Solo seats are reserved at the chef's preferred end of the counter and the kitchen will engage. Book through OpenTable around six weeks out; Mondays are easiest.