Last Updated on March 3, 2024
Japanese Dining in the heart of the City
We love Japanese food. It somehow manages to feel healthy AND indulgently luxurious. While The City is full of great places to eat, there’s always room for another Japanese restaurant like Shiro, a new opening from the Aqua group (the same people who manage Hutong and Aqua restaurants in the Shard).
Chef Ken Miyake, from Aqua Kyoto, heads up the stunning restaurant. Designed by Fabled Studio, Shiro spans across two floors and has an outdoor terrace on Broadgate Circle. With classic white interiors (Shiro means white in Japanese), it’s a tranquil space with a neutral colour palette and subtle lighting. Seated upstairs, we enjoyed the view out to Broadgate Circle while on the ground floor, there’s a long counter which acts as both a bar and open kitchen. With an integrated sushi counter and robata theatre, it would be perfect if you were dining by yourself!
In an attempt to avoid drinking spirits, we started with two glasses of prosecco vaporetta
First up, appetisers. We enjoyed the hoji cha (a special green tea) braised octopus and potato salad dressed with coriander miso was nicely cooked with tender octopus and a light potato salad. The coriander miso dressing added a subtle piquancy to this delicate dish.
I could eat gyoza all day – these plump prawn and ginger dumplings were a good example of the kind of comfort food everyone needs at this time of year, served with an ikura and yuzu ponzu dipping sauce, they had a crisp fried shell with a soft, well-balanced stuffing.
Rock shrimp tempura with spicy chilli and garlic mayonnaise was fresh from the fryer, a light and crisp batter coating the shelled tender rock shrimp
Our chef’s special sushi platter had so much variety that we might easily have skipped the main courses (though I am glad we didn’t). There was one each of the house’s special crystal sushi – for us, toro (fatty salmon) with mint and sake jelly. Both of us agreed that these delicate morsels needed their own presentation and we loved the ‘crystal’ melt-in-the-mouth wrapping.
Spicy tuna maki with tobiko (roe), avocado, cucumber and chilli mayonnaise was a good contrast and our sashimi selection of salmon, tuna and yellowtail was fresh and delicious.
The Edomae sushi, in our case red seabream and mackerel, is a house speciality – with the raw fish draped over sticky rice. The benefit for us, is that you get a better ratio of fish to rice and that the whole thing is easier for chopstick novices to handle. Both were delicious – and I loved the delicate slicing of the mackerel.
For main courses, we shared two house specialities. The grilled kabayaki eel was utterly stunning with boned and butterflied eel dressed in a sauce that is not unlike Teriyaki, made from soy, mirin and sugar and seasoned with sansho pepper. Served with rice in a hot stone bowl, the only challenge was how to move it round the table to share it! The sweet sticky sauce was moreish and the eel itself was nicely firm and flaky.
British lamb cutlets from the robata grill were meltingly tender with a pink middle. The yuzu and shiso marinade contrasted well with the sweetness of the meat and the kimchi and spicy mayonnaise were piquant additions.
For dessert, some delicious and for me quite unusual mango tempura pieces with vanilla ice cream and blossom honey. An excellent end to the meal if you’ve already eaten too much, these were light enough not to seem overindulgent. By contrast, the black sesame fondant was adorned with a beautiful chocolate floral disk and with the perfect oozy chocolate centre complemented by miso vanilla ice-cream.
This is a great place to know about if you work locally, with a bar food offering and cocktails that would make a great end to the day. There’s a lunch menu too. I can see Shiro becoming very popular over the next few months, with well-priced, delicious food and drink in comfortable, elegant and relaxed surroundings.
Address: Broadgate Circle,100 Liverpool Street, London, EC2M 2RH
Website: www.shirosushi.co.uk
Looking for something different? Try Nobu Cafe in Shoreditch – you’ll find great Asian fusion dishes as part of their all-day dining menu
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