• Home
  • Cocktails
  • Culture
    • Dance
    • Opera
    • Theatre
    • Outdoor
    • London Life
      • Foodie London
      • Visiting London – Five Must Do Sights
      • Visiting London – London Travel Tips
    • Balcony Gardening
  • Featured
    • Books
    • Home Delivery
    • Recipe Kits
    • Giveaways
  • Recipes
    • Meat
    • Soups
    • Lunch
    • Starters
    • Mains
    • Sides
    • Desserts
    • Cakes and Sweets
    • 5:2 Diet Recipes
    • Fish and Shellfish
    • Meat
    • Poultry
    • Vegetarian
  • Restaurants
    • Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia
    • Bermondsey, Borough and London Bridge
    • Chelsea
    • Camden
    • City of London
    • Clerkenwell
    • Covent Garden
    • Docklands
    • East London
    • Kings Cross
    • Knightsbridge
    • Kings Cross
    • Kensington
    • Marylebone
    • Mayfair
    • Oxford Circus
    • Oxford Circus
    • Paddington
    • St James
    • Soho
    • South Bank
    • South London
    • The Strand and Embankment
    • North London
    • Victoria and Pimlico
    • West London
    • Out of London
    • Miscellaneous
  • Travel UK
  • Travel Europe
    • Belgium
    • Croatia
    • Czech Republic
    • First Visit
      • Bulgaria
      • Netherlands
      • Poland
      • Romania
      • Slovenia
    • France
    • Germany
    • Greece
    • Italy
      • Sicily
    • Ireland
    • Portugal
    • Spain
    • UK
  • Travel Other
    • Caribbean Travel
      • Antigua
      • Barbados
      • Grenada
      • St Lucia
    • Ecuador
    • Egypt
    • India
    • Qatar
    • Mexico
    • Oman
    • Rodrigues and Mauritius
    • Sri Lanka
    • USA

London Unattached - Luxury Mid-Life London Lifestyle

Luxury London Lifestyle for mid-life Metropolitans - food, travel, restaurant reviews - London Unattached

You are here: Home / Restaurant / Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia / Roka Charlotte Street – Review

Roka Charlotte Street – Review

July 18, 2019 by Fiona Maclean Leave a Comment

Tweet
Pin
Share
Flip
Share

Fitzrovia’s Finest Japanese Dining – Roka, Charlotte Street.

Well established restaurants in London which still have a feeling of freshness and a contemporary appeal are rare.  Thanks to immaculate and innovative design though, Roka, the Japanese Sushi and Robata restaurant from Rainer Becker, fits that bill perfectly.  Although Roka, Charlotte Street opened in 2004, the design, with simple concrete walls, a large, open kitchen with Robata grill, surrounded by bar seating for diners has passed the test of time.  It might have opened yesterday.

Roka Charlotte Street Exterior 2

We arrived early in the evening, at 6 pm to a restaurant that already had a scattering of seated guests.  Our purpose, to try the menu paired with a very special Japanese beer, Kirin Ichiban.  While I generally drink wine rather than beer, the same can’t be said for my companion that evening who knows his way around the odd pint or two.  Even he was intrigued.  Kirin Ichiban is the only beer in the world that uses the Ichiban shibori (first press) from the malt.  It’s a process that is sometimes compared to extra virgin olive oil, based on the purest and most flavourful portion of the strain.  The result is a light, refined and refreshing beer with a fine foam.  

Kirin Beer

Two glasses of Kirin on hand, our first dish arrived – a lotus-flower like arrangement of yellowtail sashimi with a yuzu truffle sauce served usuzukuri style.  Kampachi sashimi no salada was delicious, tender and citrussy.  It paired beautifully with the Kirin.

Roka Yellowtail usuzukuri style

More dishes arrived, a large platter of sashimi and tartare on ice comprised a bluefin tunu otoro sashimi, seared hamachi with black truffle and maguro tataki with oscietra caviar together with sake no taru taru, a salmon tartare dressed with den miso and yuzu. 

Roka Sashimi

The otoro sashimi was firm but easily flaked into chopstick sized chunks while my favourite of the three was the slightly less fatty maguro tataki topped with caviar.

Wagyu Beef Gunkan at Roka Charlotte Street

I particularly liked the wagyu gunkan – a dressed wagyu tartare wrapped with nori into a kind of battleship shape (gunkan means battleship in Japanese) and topped with oscietra caviar.  Simple and yet bursting with flavour and with a silken tender texture. 

Iceberg Lettuce - Roka charlotte street

The start of our second ‘course’ heralded the arrival of a dish of iceberg lettuce topped with caramelised onion (iceberg salad no wafu).  Or that’s the menu description.  It arrived looking a little like a vegetable take on meatloaf, with an innocuous brown onion topping.  A moment on the lips though and you’ll experience a burst of flavours – as our helpful waitress explained caramelised shallots are mixed with apple and celery and topped with sesame seeds and shredded spring onion and nori taking an innocent iceberg to a new level.

Iceberg Lettuce - Roka charlotte street

Ebi no tempura – a rock shrimp tempura with chilli mayo – was perfectly executed, with the lightest and crispest tempura coating perfectly cooked sweet morsels of rock shrimp.

Roka Charlotte Street Wagyu Tempura Maki Roll

Another curious wagyu dish, a tempura maki with karashi ponzu and oscietra caviar, was a delicious mouthful while gindara to kani no gyoza – crab and black cod dumpling with roasted chilli dressing – were perfectly cooked, with just the right amount of bite to the dumplings, generous filling and a slightly piquant and spicy dressing and garnished with a few edamame and shredded spring onion.

Roka Dumpling Charlotte Street

The third course was all about the robata grill.  Deliciously nutty broccoli no shinme, shoga to moromi miso,  tenderstem broccoli, ginger and moromi miso, provided a welcome vegetable interlude.  I loved the ginger and moromi miso topping, a darker and saltier miso complementing the fresh broccoli perfectly.

Broccoli Roka

Hand dived Scottish scallops provide the basis for yaki hotate, a scallop skewer with wasabi and shiso and with a little touch of yuzo mayo complementing the beautifully caramelised scallops.  Perfectly cooked, tender and delicious I could easily have eaten a plateful of these.

Scallops Roka Charlotte STreet

Kankoku fu kohitsuji, lamb cutlets with a spicy Korean crust and a chilli laced dipping sauce, was the top dish at Taste of London last year.  Deservedly so I think – the lamb was sweet, tender and moist while the spicing was balanced and piquant.  Cucumber sticks helped to offset the heat too.

Roka Charlotte Street Lamb Cutlets

The last of the savoury courses was a very generous portion of Black Cod to share.  Gindara no saikyo-yaki is black cod marinated in yuzu miso then slow cooked on the robata wrapped in a banana leaf.  I was intrigued by the concept of slow cooking fish – the result was a firm, flaky and perfectly cooked portion of black cod with a delicate and subtle miso glaze complementing the sweet fish.

Roka Charlotte Street Black Cod

By this stage, even our waitress knew we’d be replete.  A small dessert was promised.  What arrived was a stunning platter of exotic fruits (lychees, kiwi, dragon fruit,  tamarind, passion fruit and more), three scoops of sorbet – coconut, mango and a delicate pear and yuzu that we learnt was intended to accompany the Roka  ‘signature dessert’ – a small chocolate pudding made with a mixture of 70% and milk chocolate filled with white chocolate and matcha.  And, if that wasn’t enough, a tonka bean coated banana icecream with an accompaniment of buttery roasted bananas.

Roka Charlotte Street Dessert Platter

Throughout the meal, we enjoyed Kirin beer and Roka’s own light chilled ginjo nama choza sake as an alternative.   It was a spectacular dining event with the focus firmly on the food.  But, despite what seemed like endless dishes, neither of us found the meal overwhelming.  A real tribute to the quality of ingredients and the style of cooking – and perhaps the ultimate in healthy luxury.

Roka Charlotte Street Bar

If you’d like to try Kirin beer for yourself and enjoy some superb Japanese dishes, all the Roka branches in London now offer the fine Japanese beer on their menu as the perfect complement to their food.

Roka Charlotte Street
37 Charlotte Street
London W1T 1RR

T: +44 (0) 20 7580 6464
F: +44 (0) 20 7580 0220

infocharlottestreet@rokarestaurant.com

Check their website for more about Kirin beer.

For an alternative to Roka, you may wish to try Inko Nito in Soho, the latest restaurant from Rainer Becker .  And if you can’t make any of these London restaurant here’s my own recipe for Miso Glazed Black Cod 

Disclosure:  We were guests of Kirin and of Roka Charlotte Street.

Filed Under: Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia, Restaurant Tagged With: Fitzrovia, Japanese, japanese restaurant

About Fiona Maclean

London based freelance writer and marketing consultant. I edit London-Unattached.com and write for a number of other publications. With a music degree and a background in marketing across many sectors, my passions include all types of music, food, restaurants, wine and travel

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Follow Us

  • Bloglovin
  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • StumbleUpon
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter

About London-Unattached

  • About Fiona Maclean
    • Writing for Other Publications
  • Enquiries/PR
  • Links to Other Sites
  • London Unattached Contributors
  • London Unattached Privacy Policy
  • Media Pack
  • Newsletter
  • Travel Bloggers Influencer Network

Recently Published

  • Celebrate Chinese New Year with Lu Ban Kitchen
  • Best Date Night Meal Kit Deliveries
  • Japanified – the latest in Japanese and Latin American fusion food
Looking for more recipes? Check out my new site, The Frugal Flexitarian, for easy, cost effective recipes to enjoy at home.
Find My 5:2 Diet Recipes quickly and easily

London Unattached Newsletter

Sign up for our newsletter here. We promise not to spam - and you can unsubscribe at any time

Search London Unattached


Find Us

blogl
VuelioTop10Badge2020

Copyright © 2021 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in