Within the Blowfish Group's portfolio of Victoria Island restaurants — which spans La Veranda Italian, Mashawi Lebanese, and the wider hotel and hospitality operation — Izanagi is the crown jewel. It is the restaurant that Lagos's most travelled diners, those who know what Japanese food actually tastes like in Osaka and Tokyo, return to with the most consistency and recommend with the most conviction. Its food score of 9.0 is the highest of any non-Nigerian cuisine restaurant in the city.
The menu announces its ambitions early. The sushi section leads with locally-sourced fish handled with the kind of precision that demands, rather than requests, good ingredient quality. Atlantic yellowfin arrives with a knife discipline that would not embarrass a Shinjuku counter. The maki rolls are textbook in construction and serve as a reliable indicator that the kitchen has been trained correctly. Gluten-free diners are genuinely accommodated — seaweed salads, mushroom preparations, and vegetable-forward dishes are built into the menu rather than added as afterthoughts.
The teppanyaki experience is the theatrical heart of the operation. The chef stations — open, visible, performative in the way that only teppanyaki can be — turn dinner into a production worth watching. Cuts of beef are selected with care, and the cooking technique is precise enough that requesting medium-rare actually delivers medium-rare. The teriyaki programme covers salmon, beef, and chicken with equal attention.
For those who want to place themselves entirely in the kitchen's hands, the omakase-style selections — which vary with sourcing and season — are the most rewarding way to eat here. The kitchen knows its fish, understands its proteins, and makes decisions about the evening's menu that reflect genuine culinary intelligence rather than simple assembly.
A regular reviewer on Tripadvisor describes Izanagi as "a world-class outfit that can hold its own against any restaurant in the world." The hyperbole is forgivable because the sentiment is not entirely wrong: within its register, within its cuisine, within Lagos's competitive landscape, Izanagi does not have a domestic rival worth naming.