The most expensive set menu in the UK? It’s sushi at more than US$530 – and an experience so classically Japanese, you’ll forget you’re in London
- Sushi Kanesaka is the newest outpost of Japanese chef Shinji Kanesaka, who has Michelin-star venues in Tokyo and has opened restaurants in hotels across Asia
- Located in the 45 Park Lane hotel in London, his first restaurant in Europe features an omakase menu that leaves the competition looking cheap by comparison
I am greeted by an elegant okami-san (hostess) and led along a corridor of stone flooring flanked by cedar wood walls and past a noren (curtain), where a counter is immaculately set up for dining.
So far, so Tokyo – except I am in London, on the first floor of the 45 Park Lane hotel.
Sushi Kanesaka is the newest outpost of Japanese chef Shinji Kanesaka, whose restaurant empire spans several Michelin-star venues in Tokyo, including his flagship two-star Ginza Sushi Kanesaka.
He has also opened restaurants within five-star hotels in Asia, including at the Carlton and St Regis hotels in Singapore – which have one Michelin star apiece – and at the Palace Hotel, Tokyo.
Sushi Kanesaka at 45 Park Lane in Mayfair is Kanesaka’s first restaurant outside Asia, and I am visiting during the soft launch before its official opening on July 1.