After seven years at the County Hall building, the Japanese restaurant is heading east
Even though it’s been operating for a number years, Hannah always felt like one of London’s best kept secrets. Tucked away inside the County Hall building on the Southbank, the restaurant offered one of the best omakase experiences in town – chef proprietor Daisuke Shimoyama would take inspiration from the kaiseki style of service and blend both Japanese and British cooking techniques and ingredients.
It was announced in March that Hannah was leaving County Hall and moving to Stratford to take up residence in The Stratford Hotel in May. The hotel’s previous restaurant Allegra, run by Patrick Powell, closed in the summer of 2024. The east London restaurant was never planned to be a carbon copy of Hannah, and now we know that it’ll be omakase restaurant Kokin, featuring two terraces, a dedicated sushi bar and a wine list curated by Provisions Wine & Cheese.
At Kokin, which means ‘past and present’ in Japanese, Daisuke Shimoyama will combine traditional Japanese techniques with modern methods across a menu that celebrates wood-fired cooking. Cherry wood, apple wood and Binchotan charcoal will be used to cook seasonal ingredients, like wild Japanese mountain veg, A5 Miyazaki Wagyu, and British seafood.
As well as dishes like Woodfire x Charcoal Grilled Turbot, where the bones are grilled to make a stock and combined with miso for a sauce, there’ll be two sushi experiences on offer at the sushi bar; ‘temae’, where diners can choose the ingredients, and ‘omakase’, where it’s left in the hands of the chef. Like the experiences at Tuna Fight Club and TENrei at Los Mochis, Kokin will also host evenings dedicated to the deconstruction and preparation of whole bluefin tuna.
Instead of giving up the County Hall site completely, the team has turned it into clay pot rice-focused restaurant Donabe, so while the kaiseki dining may have gone, we’ve now got two different styles of Japanese cuisine to enjoy.
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Key Information
Opening date | Thurs 1st May 2025
Address | Olympic Park, 20 International Wy, London E20 1FD
For more information | @kokin_london