Last Updated on September 17, 2025
Eat out to help out #cookforukraine and UNICEF
The war in Ukraine has most people glued to the rolling news, the horror growing only worse day by day. Many charities, organisations and individuals have leapt into action around the world to do what they can to help. In the food world #cookforukraine was set up within days of the invasion and aims to raise awareness and vital aid for children and families in Ukraine who have been displaced by the invasion. Many restaurants have added a pound or two to the bill at the end of a meal which will be donated. Others are cooking special dishes – like chicken Kyev – the proceeds of which will be donated to charity. Yet other restaurants are donating the entire bill for the meal to charity. One of these is RAI, a new restaurant with a modern Japanese fusion concept based on multi-course omakase-style tasting menus. A special edition, 4-course menu has been designed at £59 per head (plus an optional £49 wine and sake pairing) and the entire profit will be donated to UNICEF UK. This menu is available at lunch and dinner from Wednesdays to Saturdays until 9 April (excluding 26 and 27 March).
Omakase is a Japanese word that translates as entrust. Thus, an omakase-style menu suggests that the diner leaves it up to the chef to decide what will be served. The fusion concept can be seen in the pairing of Japanese products like the Kobe and wagyu beef, nori, aged soy and rice with ingredients from the UK including Dorset cheddar, English truffle and chocolate.
RAI occupies an elegant space in Fitzrovia where diners can choose to sit at the bar and watch the chefs in action or at tables covered in white napery in the restaurant itself. We sat in a peaceful, elegant room with lots of wood and tones of forest green. The restaurant supports recycling and many items from décor to crockery are produced from recycled materials. Music is soft and appropriate to the ambience and the service from our waiter, Giles, was excellent – informative, attentive and friendly. Special mention must be made of the crockery which has been specially designed and produced for the restaurant. Each piece is sculptural in itself and showcases the food beautifully. If any of these dishes were on sale I would have left the restaurant at the end of the meal with a bag full.
The special edition menu has been curated by Executive Chef Padam Raj Rai. The meal began with three small snacks. Two were served in lovely wooden boxes filled with raw rice. In each box nestled a petal-shaped white spoon. On one was an Amaebi prawn with 10-year soy and caviar. These prawns are renowned for their sweet taste and are served raw so as to preserve their flavour. Paired with the soy this had a faintly smoky flavour. The second spoon held minute cubes of homemade tofu, 10-year-old soy and ponzu caviar. These lovely, golden balls are homemade and were delicious and colourful. The third snack was a slice of crispy lotus root on which perched a tuna tartare and mild wasabi. This lotus root was the best I can recall eating and I would be a very happy woman if ever presented with a bag full of these crispy treats.
We then proceeded to Scottish salmon tartare served with yuzu miso, crispy leek, British pear, 60 month aged Organic Parmigiano Reggiano. This is a beautiful example of the fusion cuisine that RAI serves. I have never eaten Parmigiano with salmon never mind on a salmon tartare in a Japanese restaurant. Yet it worked well. The double punch of umami flavours – from the cheese and also the miso – encased the fresh fish. Discovering slivers of crispy leek below the grated cheese as well as tiny pieces of red onion below the salmon put me in mind of very good quality cheese and onion crisp. This was a lovely dish. Beautiful to look at with well-balanced flavours and textures.
The next dish was a 48 hour marinated black cod. This was served on a fabulous, organically shaped silver dish which is made from recycled material. The fish had been marinated in spicy miso which gave it a slight spicy back-note that complemented the buttery flavour of this magnificent fish which was perfectly cooked. Once again the fusion shone through with an excellent goat’s cheese and broccoli puree with a dab of spicy miso. On the side was a homemade tsukemono which is a vegetable pickle, in this case, a piece of carrot, turnip and cucumber. This was a good foil for the rich fish. This was another well-composed plate both visually, texturally and it was a novel taste experience. The classic combination of goat’s cheese with broccoli might usually be bedfellows expected to be found in a tart, not alongside butterfish. I loved it.
The omakase sashimi course is a thing of beauty. It is on the menu with a £28 supplement and was presented with artistry. First our waiter, in gloved hands, presented a wooden tray on which sat fresh wasabi root. This is grown near Mt Fuji. At RAI it is grated fresh at the table and has a far more subtle taste than the wasabi so many restaurants serve which is ready-made and filled out with horseradish. A beautiful glass bottle containing soy sauce was decanted into tiny serving dishes and the grated wasabi placed in even smaller dishes on a slice of radish. Exquisite attention to detail.
Chef Rai arrived carrying a sculpture to the table. Four pieces of sashimi were each folded into a half sea urchin shell and these were perched like tiny nests on driftwood. What an artistic seascape, perfectly suited for the presentation of fish. The order of eating each fish was explained and we followed suit beginning with deeply ruby-hued bluefin tuna, Scottish salmon, Hamachi yellowtail and, lastly, a fatty tuna known as otoro.
The final fish course was new style butterfish sashimi. This was a lightly seared cube of butterfish wrapped in a slice of lean tuna and perched on a red jalapeño sauce and topped with slices of green and red jalapeño. This punchy dish was served on yet another unique dish, this one looking like a volcanic crater. The sear provided a gently charred flavour which was a counterpoint to the spicy sauce which had an intriguing acidity to its vibrant orange colour. This was like lava pouring from an erupting volcano as the plate suggested. There was so much going on with this dish, visually and from a taste perspective.
The order of dishes – ending with this spicy one – felt as if the chef had written a piece of music with the food which reached its taste climax via a crescendo of flavours before a gentle diminuendo through dessert and petits fours.
Dessert was pumpkin, umeshu (plum sake) and coconut ice cream, yuzu foam. This orange quenelle of ice cream was a pretty and gentle dessert. I have not previously eaten pumpkin ice cream and it had a subtle floral note, not too sweet, very subtle and gentle. Citrus and sugary notes came from the yuzu foam which surrounded the ice cream.
Petit fours were served most creatively. First, a beautiful gold implement was placed on the table. It was not only attractive to look at and to hold but would make an excellent hat pin, lapel jewellery or small weapon should you need one. I assumed it might be in use on the table as a skewer. Next, a fabric wrapped parcel arrived on the table. We were left to unwrap it and discovered that the fabric was a lovely print of Mt Fuji and within was a wooden box.
Lifting the lid we found the box filled with uncooked rice on which nestled two oyster shells. Each one held a truffle, white and dark chocolate. Encouraged to first eat the white one as it is less intense we found it was organic white chocolate with yuzu rolled in coconut. The second was an intense organic dark chocolate with Yamazaki 12 years whisky. Chef Rai approached our table with a bottle of his home-made rice wine which he poured into small liqueur glasses. It was delicious and at one-month-old, just the right level of fermentation.
RAI serves food that demands to be eaten mindfully, using one’s senses, eating first with one’s eyes and then with the palate. It deserves to be eaten slowly and with respect for the ingredients and the skill of the chef. RAI is a newly opened restaurant – less than two months ago. It was very quiet on a Thursday night and I hope that customer numbers will pick up. With food this good, it is one to watch.
While enjoying this four-course menu, there is the option of adding on two courses for supplements of £28 for 48 hours marinated Chilean seabass and £69 for a wagyu course.
RAI
3 Windmill Street
Fitzrovia
London W1T 2HY
T: 0207 4190305
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