Last Updated on March 10, 2024
Mother and son enjoy Nikkei cuisine
Chotto Matte is high-energy, big on flavour, on energy and volume. It is a restaurant with a club vibe where the cocktails flow and the sharing plates are so tasty that I wanted to rebook before the meal was over. It specialises in Nikkei cuisine, a Peruvian-Japanese fusion that results in a colourful and creative set of dishes. During the first lockdown, I was able to review Chotto at Home with the best miso cod I had ever eaten. I was keen to revisit these flavours at the bricks and mortar Chotto Matte itself. I was accompanied by my son who is in his early 20s so that we could discuss an intergenerational experience of this vibey eatery which apparently attracts an older clientele during the daytime hours.
The first impression on entering Chotto Matte is the style detail. Massive floor to ceiling LED panels are emblazoned with colourful artwork and neon signs indicate that this is a restaurant focusing on the vibe as much as the food. On the ground floor is a large L shaped bar centre stage while on the first floor there is a huge open grill where a team of male chefs are hard at work. The music in the early evening was loud and, my companion informed me, is known as EDM (electronic dance music).
Once seated on our low and comfy chairs we were greeted warmly by our waiter, George, who took excellent care of us throughout the meal. He directed us to a card on the table with a QR code so as to access the menu. I was rather pleased to have my son with me as I am of the generation that still requires a printed menu. Post-COVID those days may be gone.
Over delicious cocktails – a Pisco Sour and a Nikkei Negroni – we perused the menu and took in our surroundings. Wanting to taste a bit of everything – the menu is divided into sharing menus (including a vegetarian menu) or an a la carte selection of sashimi, sushi, tempura and dishes from the robata grill – we struck on a Nikkei sharing menu. These are a choice of small plates that come out as they are ready but are generally grouped into starters, main course type dishes and then dessert.
The meal started on a strong note with spicy tuna crispy rice. This was a play on the traditional nigiri with the rice being crispy and the tuna in the form of a tartare. It was flavoured with gochujang sauce which is sweet, spicy and full-on umami.
Soon the table began to fill up with a variety of dishes. Padrón peppers were glazed with miso which had my pepper loving son beaming with umami joy. These were really very good. Then the star dish of the night arrived – yellowtail ‘nikkei sashimi’. Because the restaurant is very low lit, this dish looked deceptively simple and we peered at it to work out what was giving it such a superb taste. It turned out to be a complex dish – thin slices of fresh yellowtail, finely sliced cherry tomatoes, red onion and a scattering of micro coriander. And then we discovered tiny discs of salty, crispy purple potato which is a favourite Peruvian tuber. Other constituents included Jalapeno chilli and yuzu. We carefully curated each mouthful which was salty, acidic and silkily rich. It was the sort of dish I could easily eat several times a week and never grow tired of. It is so popular at Chotto Matte that it has been on the menu constantly in the nine years since the restaurant opened.
Tempura was next in the form of nikkei jalea mixta which included prawn, squid and cauliflower. It had the requisite crispiness and was topped with a Peruvian sauce flavoured with yuzu and Peruvian mayo, along with the spiciness of chilli.
BBQ Huacatay broccoli cooked on the robata was well grilled with a lovely chilli hit but we found the sauce overly acidic. Then came the black cod aji miso which was every bit as good as I recalled. It is an utterly delicious, melt in the mouth dish with a lovely balance of sweet miso and chilli backnotes.
Barriguita de Chanchito was served in an attractive ceramic bowl that contained cubes of tender pork belly with a good distribution of fat. The citrusy sauce cut through the rich meat and red onion and coriander rounded off the flavours. The dish had a very good mouthfeel and the kind of sauce you want to mop up, impossible with a chopstick I discovered. I thought that this dish balanced out the menu well. My son enjoys meat more than fish whereas I am mostly pescatarian so both our preferences were well catered for.
The final course, curiously, was the sushi. Our waiter explained that sushi is served last in Japanese restaurants so that the other dishes can be enjoyed and savoured without diners having filled up with rice. It did strike me that this menu was bookended with rice and I am not sure that I would choose to end the menu with sushi, but we were not arguing. A very attractive sato maki arrived filled with asparagus and seabass and topped with finely chopped padrón peppers and salmon tartare, miso and mirin. I wondered what the blowtorch was for and all was revealed when it was used to caramelise the topping. My son has experienced this in other sushi restaurants. I need to get out more.
After this veritable feast of flavours and high-quality dishes, there was no need for dessert. Yet we tucked into the chef’s choice dessert which was a collection of matcha waffles with baked cheesecake mousse, caramelised pineapple, and green tea ice cream. A rather dry pecan brownie sat alongside a scoop of coconut ice cream and, our favourite, tiny mochi ice cream – both mango and green tea flavours.
My young companion – whose spending point is well below the prices at Chotto Matte – declared that it was a fantastic place to go for young people with good salaries. It was, I was informed, quite a flex, club-like venue albeit that the food is very good. When we arrived at 6.30 pm diners at neighbouring tables were all middle-aged but by 8 pm when the DJ got going, the average age had dropped a few decades (mostly people in their 30s and early 40s by our estimation) and I was the oldest person in the room. The low chairs, low lighting, high decibel level and constant thumping music suggest that this is a nighttime restaurant that appeals to a younger clientele. Even the steps down to the loos are very dark. My son thought that this would be a wonderful place to go with friends to celebrate a birthday before going on to bars and clubs later in the evening. As for me, I like to think I have a youthful spirit so I enjoyed myself, but if loud music is not to your taste ( I struggled to hear the waiter at times who was sharing information about the food) and you prefer a quiet conversation and a slower-paced service then you may want to try the restaurant out during the daytime.
The atmosphere in the evening at Chotto Matte was certainly very lively, with young people kicking back the cocktails and enjoying plates of food that crisscross the restaurant constantly. Service was brisk, efficient and friendly. Before we left we took a peek upstairs and there we found an equally large space, more densely packed with tables at which hundreds of people were eating. I was even more impressed by the logistics of getting so much food out so efficiently to so many people and did not envy the team of men charged with doing so around the searing heat of the open grill. Soho is packed with tiny eateries that serve just a few tables. Chotto Matte is quite the opposite – it is big, bold, busy and makes for a really fun night out.
Chotto Matte
11 – 13 Frith Street,
Soho W1D 4RB
They also have a great brunch – check our review of the Chotto Matte Harajuku Brunch here
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