The original Jidori is one of Dalston’s best restaurants, a simple but classy affair specialising in Japanese yakitori (grilled skewers) and the legendary katsu curry scotch egg. The Covent Garden outpost opened last year but it’s just had a makeover, with new interiors inspired by the back streets of Tokyo spread across four storeys of the Grade II Georgian townhouse the restaurant occupies, with some extra seats outside. Don’t worry, that karaoke room in the basement hasn’t gone anywhere!
There have been some new additions to the menu too, including the tsukune cheeseburger sando. It’s a riff on their tsukune skewer, which comes wrapped in a thin layer of cheese and sat on a square of white bread – you wrap the bread around, pull the beef off the skewer and voila, you’ve got yourself a mini sando, and yes it really does taste like a cheeseburger. As we’re also a sucker for the classics, we went for that katsu curry scotch egg too, which is great every single time.
We followed that with a selection of kushiyaki and yakitori, opting for the negima, chicken thigh with spring onion; the duck breast skewer with an orange glaze; and the shiitake and shimeji mushroom one. Though Jidori is known for chicken, the duck kushiyaki is definitely worth an order.
There’s a new dessert exclusive to Covent Garden of milk pudding with cherries and cherry granita, but we couldn’t resist another of Jidori’s most popular dishes (and for good reason), the ginger ice cream, miso caramel, sweet potato crisps and black sesame seeds. Pair a bowl of that with a Ginger Ninja cocktail and you’re in ginger heaven.
The central location seems to be working well for Jidori, with a lot of people stopping by for a pre-theatre meal – if you need somewhere for a quick bite before a show, this is a great alternative to the chains in the area.
15 Catherine Street, London, WC2B 5JZ
jidori.co.uk