Last Updated on July 22, 2026
Seasonal Japanese cuisine
4.8 out of 5.0 starsIf you are yearning for a familiar taste of Japan or are new to this unique cuisine, book a table at Roketsu, where you will find yourself steeped in the atmosphere, food, and respect for craft, design and culture that typifies the best Japanese restaurants. Enjoying every mouthful of my lunch, I half expected that I would step out afterwards onto the streets of Kyoto rather than a hot London afternoon.
Roketsu is a kappo-style restaurant that serves kaiseki meals, usually served at the counter. Kappo translates as ‘cut and cook’ and is a combination of the formality of the haute cuisine, kaiseki meal with its set, multicourse menu, with the informality of sitting at the counter, watching the cooking and engaging with the chef who explains the dishes. Unlike an omakase meal where the chef serves a selection of sushi and tempura, the kappo menu at Roketsu is a five-course affair served at lunch and dinner, with a wider range of cooking methods. Roketsu also offers a range of very good-value, shorter set menus at the lunch service. These lunch sets include sushi, sashimi or a combination of the two, chicken or salmon teriyaki, prawn or vegetable tempura, pork katsu, or grilled fish. Each set includes rice, miso soup, and pickled vegetables. There is also an à la carte menu.
Roketsu opened some five years ago and appointed a new head chef, Toshimasa Tanahashi, in September 2025. One of the thrills of sitting at the counter and watching the culinary theatrics – albeit that in Japanese restaurants this embraces a Zen-like quality – is engaging with the chef who presents the dishes, explains what you are eating and, in our case, ended up chatting about Nagoya, from whence he hails and where we recently visited.
At first glance, the interior of Roketsu looks much like many Japanese eateries in London – a long wooden counter where diners sit and watch the sushi chefs creating their meals. However, Roketsu’s interior was designed by master carpenters from Nakamura Sotoji Komuten, a Kyoto-based construction company known for sukiya-zukuri architecture, which incorporates the aesthetic of the traditional teahouse into contemporary settings. This gives Roketsu a refined and authentic ambience. The stunning seven-metre-long counter was crafted from a single slab of 300-year-old hinoki cypress. Handcrafted in Kyoto, the interior of Roketsu was brought to London, where the craftsmen themselves assembled it. While diners may not be aware of these details, the attention to Japanese craft and culture is striking on entering the restaurant. No detail has been overlooked. Behind the chefs is a beautiful wood-panelled wall on which hangs a framed calligraphic artwork, which is kanji for Roketsu, and was crafted by renowned Japanese calligrapher Shu-oh! Yamazaki, who bridges traditional and contemporary art.
This carries over into the food itself. As is the case in most Japanese restaurants, there are a couple of chefs prepping the sashimi, another the sushi, and yet another behind the binchōtan charcoal grill. The rest of the food is cooked in the kitchen behind. The menu incorporated dishes that were simmered, fried, grilled, and served raw. Both the ingredients used and the crockery on which the dishes were presented were seasonal. In Japan, such exquisite attention is paid to the seasons that some restaurants change their menus every few weeks according to what is in peak condition. It being summer when I visited Roketsu, many dishes were served on plates with floral themes, and the colours of the food reflected the season too. I am sure that the crockery is brought over from Japan, as every plate was typical of the tinware, ceramics and lacquerware that you will find there, and this added to the experience of cultural authenticity.
Although we did not have the full drinks pairing which is available with the kappo menu, my husband began with a glass of white wine while I enjoyed a sparkling tea, which was lightly smoky and paired well with Japanese food. The menu began with two small plates. The first was spinach goma-ae (goma means sesame seeds and ae means to dress), which was simmered spinach with sesame sauce. This looked very pretty served on a gorgeous silver plate shaped like a flower. The spinach was shaped into a small pyramid, strewn with toasted sesame seeds, and sat atop a delicate sesame sauce. It was garnished with a sprig of tiny pink flowers. Fresh and delicious.
The second small plate was yellowtail with yuzu. This yellowtail sashimi was served with cauliflower purée and yuzu ponzu. Here, we were presented with beautiful, handcrafted ceramic bowls containing four slices of yellowtail, each with a silver edge, folded elegantly in a sauce made with dashi stock with kombu and bonito, yuzu, and honey, balancing the salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami flavours. The cauliflower purée had been added with a pipette onto the edges of the fish slices, and there were delicate pink flowers and a miniature nasturtium leaf. This looked the epitome of summer, was so refreshing, floral and aromatic. Beautiful at any time and particularly so in the heat of summer.
The tempura course was a seasonal vegetable tempura which brought four vegetables in a light batter. There were Japanese sweet potato, pumpkin, Japanese mushroom and aubergine. These were served with a tempura dipping sauce (known as tentsuyu) made from dashi, soy and mirin. The tempura was light and accompanied by a well-balanced sauce. This course was served on a striking footed platter painted with a floral motif.
For the main course, there was a choice of guinea fowl, fish of the day, or A5 Wagyu beef. Although I have never eaten guinea fowl in a Japanese restaurant, I could not resist the seabass grilled over binchōtan charcoal. This was another beautifully seasonal dish, a symphony of greens supporting the square fillet of seabass with its scored, crispy skin. Perfectly cooked. The fish sat above the vegetables – sliced asparagus tips (both white and green), sugar snap peas and tenderstem broccoli – which were artfully perched above an emerald green watercress sauce. To complete this summer plate, there was a dusting of the finest spinach powder. The sauce was verdant and deeply flavoursome, the vegetables retained some crunch, and the fish was sweet and firm.
My husband chose the A5 Wagyu beef, also grilled. We recently feasted on Hida Beef in Takayama, which is considered to be amongst the best Wagyu in Japan. I can report that the Wagyu served at Roketsu hails from Kyushu and was superb. It could not have been more meltingly tender and was served with a melange of colourful vegetables including baby carrot, a slice of grilled red pepper and a maitake mushroom. The flavour of the meat was enhanced by the soy and mirin marinade, and there was a yuzu oroshi (grated daikon radish mixed with yuzu) in which to dip the meat. This is an excellent accompaniment to complement the rich flavours of the meat.
With these marvellous main course dishes, my husband was served a glass of chilled Sant’ Andrea Vigne Marina Coppi, Barbera 2023, while I thoroughly enjoyed my Yuzu spritz – made with Yuzu juice, sugar to balance the acidity, and sparkling water. It was like the most sophisticated homemade lemonade, although with the particular flavour profile that makes yuzu such a superior citrus fruit.
Next on the menu was the omakase sushi course. Omakase means ‘I leave it up to you’ and is always the best way to enjoy sushi in Japanese restaurants, as the chef knows what is best that day. Here, there were three pieces of nigiri, a maki roll, and miso soup. Simply presented, the nigiri were small tablets of rice topped with voluptuous slices of Spanish medium fatty tuna, Cornish sea bass, and Scottish salmon. The three colours looked like paints on an artist’s palette. The maki roll was fatty tuna and spring onion, which was very richly flavoured. Although the menu said that the soup was red miso, the chef explained that he mixes both red and white miso. My recent trip to Nagoya brought me in contact with the local red miso, which is even more packed with flavour than the other types of miso. The sushi course at Roketsu was of such quality that I could – and will – happily return for a sushi set lunch.
Dessert was another summery dish of note. Monaka ice cream was a crisp rice wafer filled with matcha ice cream, chocolate, and red beans. The wafer had an imprint of Mount Fuji, which was a lovely touch, and it was shaped like a giant clam, completely enclosing the filling. Inside, there was a fabulous flavour exchange between the green matcha ice cream, the brown chocolate and the azuki, the sweet red bean paste that is ubiquitous in Japanese baking and desserts. This most refreshing end to the meal was served on a tiny lacquerware plate with a motif of small flowers.
As if this was not enough, the chef presented us with a final flourish. A delicate porcelain dish, shaped like a flower, held in its centre a quenelle of shiso leaf ice cream and two red, lacquered spoons. This epitomised everything about Japanese cuisine – flavour, seasonality of ingredients and presentation, utter beauty in its simplicity, behind which lies technical excellence and cultural significance. The ice cream tasted like the essence of shiso, which is a peppery Japanese herb which has flavours of both basil and mint, and seemed to me like a mint tea in ice cream form, the perfect end to this excellent menu.
The Japanese approach to eating is that you eat until you are 80 % full. While I was probably tipping over the 80% from this meal, the food was all light, fresh, beautiful on the eye, and represented an array of different cooking methods, textures, and colours of summer. If I had eaten this meal in Japan, I would have been very happy. Eating it in London made me supremely happy. I recommend Roketsu wholeheartedly.
Roketsu, 12 New Quebec Street, London W1H 7RW
Tel: 020 31491227
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