loti eats | cubé

You might not guess it from the name, but Cubé is London’s newest Japanese restaurant, having just opened on Blenheim Street in Mayfair. As the slightly unusual name suggests, this is a place that does things a little differently, with a mix of very traditional dishes plus some European influences – the bulk of the menu is arranged into Hot and Cold tapas sections, with one dish mixing Udon noodles with black olive and truffle pesto for instance.

The design is a more what you’d expect from a Japanese restaurant but it’s very appealing nonetheless – there’s a small sushi counter, a hidden basement bar serving sake and cocktails, and everything is simply decorated with plain wood panels and clean lines.

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The sushi is probably the most traditional part of the menu and we sampled two of our favourites, fatty tuna and eel to get things started. You can choose to have an entire set menu of sushi but lots of the tapas dishes had already caught our eye so we focused mainly on that.

We kicked off with chicken karage, fried in crunchy breadcrumbs and a fresh spicy tuna tartare. Lightly cooked scallops came in a butter sauce enriched by sea urchin and the assorted tempura was some of the best we’ve had in London, with a very light coating of batter. Probably the highlight of the meal though was two small cubes of pork belly, really soft and tender and seasoned with a great big whack of rosemary – we’d go back for this alone.

Cubé is an ideal spot for Japanese food fans looking for something a bit different so if that sounds like you, we can highly recommend it.

4 Blenheim St, Mayfair, London W1S 1LB
cubemayfair.com

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