REVIEW: AQUA KYOTO

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In case you hadn’t heard the Aqua group of restaurants are opening two nice joints in the city located in the building that is The Shard. But what of the original two London restaurants located just off Regent Street? Well we went along to Aqua Kyoto, the Japanese brand to check out the offerings…

The centre piece of the restaurant is a sunken sushi bar and sumibiyaki charcoal grill – there’s something quite special about watching your sushi being freshly made. The decor, whilst a little dated, is your typical fine dining Japanese restaurant style, sleek and sexy with lots of dark touches.

We kicked off with the fresh spinach rolls with toasted sesame sauce, not what we expected the rolls are made up of purely spinach and surrounded in a thick sauce. Served cold they are a cracking way to kick off a meal and laid the way for what followed, a selection of  beautifully present dishes all faultless in flavour.

Our highlights included the crunchy soft-shell crab with tobiko and avocado, the sushi platter with 12 different pieces selected by the chef, the king crab tempura with crab miso and the meaty, perfectly charcoaled black cod. But our favourite was the crispy tempura prawn roll topped with eel sauce – we do love a prawn tempura.

For fine dining Japanese food with killer cocktails make sure Aqua Kyoto is on the list!

5th Floor, 240 Regent Street, (Entrance on 30 Argyll Street) London, W1B 3BR
www.aqua.com.hk