Sakana-Tei Japanese Restaurant
11 Maddox Street
Mayfair
London W1S 2QF
Nearest Tube: Oxford Circus
3.4 Yummy stars
Price ££ Set Lunch - £15.80-£25+; Rolls £3.40-£6.40 (some at market price); Sushi per piece - £4-£7 (some at market price) + hot dishes (at time of writing)
Miso Soup and Clear Soup at Sakana-Tei
Buzz Factor 3.2/5 stars
Food 3.9/5 stars
Value for money 3.2/5 stars
Sakana-Tei is very much a down-to-earth authentic Japanese restaurant. It is totally unpretentious in its décor, pretty basic in fact. You come here to eat great Japanese food and not to be seen as such. It is normally a good sign if you see other Japanese people eating here as well…..
The staff were all friendly enough. Polite and quiet, as you would expect in a Japanese restaurant. Our young waitress, sweet as she was, did not appear to understand much English. She couldn’t quite grasp what we were asking. Help! Google Translate. Pointing to the menu worked best. And then, my friend’s main lunch took a while to come after chasing. However, the food, when it came, was great.
We went for a combination of set menus (which were reasonably priced given the quality of the raw fish and its central location) and various à la carte items. The sashimi and sushi were very fresh. The fatty tuna (Toro) just melted in your mouth. If you like uni (sea urchin), you have to order separately at “Season’s price”. On the day, 2 pieces of uni sushi cost £16.
The stars of the day were the appetizers that came with the Special Chirashi (sashimi spread on a layer of rice) set lunch. The clear soup – served in a cute little teapot and poured into a tiny saké cup. It was so full of flavour. The other appetizer was this incredibly smooth savoury egg custard, again steeped in deliciousness.
I had the Special Chirashi set lunch. It had a fair amount of sashimi on top of a bowl of well cooked sushi rice eg tuna, fatty tuna, salmon, squid, yellow tail, prawn, mackerel, crab stick. If you like lots of raw fish, this would be the one to go for.
The black cod was well marinated. It was cooked well and was still moist.
You come to Sakana-Tei for some good honest and authentic Japanese cuisine without having to pay staggeringly high prices. My kind of restaurant. I would definitely go again.
