Reviews Yashin Ocean House

� � � � �, the full 5 star rating for an outstanding Sushi experience based on a 150 year old tradition to serve the sushi with the best corresponding topings. Third time visit during 4 years and always amazed by the perfect quality and presentation.

こちらで頂いたお寿司の味はこれからも忘れられないでしょう。。！！ 高級感溢れる店内に、出てくるお料理はどれも本当に美しく、目にも味にもうっとりしてしまいました。カウンターから見える料理人の方々のプロフェッショナルな手さばきも本当にかっこ良いです。ロンドンに行くなら必ず行ってほしいお店(*^^*)

Authentic, and yet creative.

I’ve had plenty of amazing meals in London but rarely is my mind truly blown as it was by Yashin Ocean House at lunch last weekend. The Japanese restaurant is located in a rather easy to miss building with limited signage in the middle of Old Brompton Road. There’s a terrace outside which looks like a lovely spot for summer drinking…

Earlier this week I wrote about my favourite Chinese meal in London. And today's post is about my favourite Japanese restaurant in London - Yashin Ocean House. This post was meant to go live while I was actually in Japan last week, but due to a massively heavy schedule out there I didn't get any time to write or work, as I'd thought I would (not a bad thing - just means I'm a bit behind on posting!)

I always hate waste, wasting food, wasting money, in general wasting anything unless it is unavoidable. With similar ethos to St John of "head to tail" eating, Yashin Ocean House's menu is based entirely around fish and seafood offering head to tail dining including every aspect of the fish from roe to flesh to skin. There is even a wonderful display of fish drying in glass cabinets behind the main kitchen area.

Tucked away behind South Kensington/Gloucester Road tube station, sit a beautiful restored Victorian stable that house Yashin Ocean House. With Chef Daniele Codini at the helm of the kitchen (formerly The Fat Duck in UK and L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon in Paris), I suspected it was going to be more than just a treat.

We started off an amuse bouche of risotto with miso, shiso and scallop. It is a Japanese twist on a Italian dish of risotto. Made with brown sushi rice(?) rather than the typical risotto rice (i.e. arborio), it has a more nuttier flavour. Cooked to extremely al dente and with a hint of miso taste, the whole dish still tasted creamy. The temperature of the risotto is supposed to cook the thin slice of scallop (or salmon which I was served as the waitress thought I was allergic to all shellfish, I'm only allergic to a few but not all), the seafood can be slightly raw not that it matters a great deal. Nevertheless, a very good risotto.

Spicy octopus soy ceviche is the least memorable dish of the night, not particularly special but rest of the meal was a highlight. Foie gras miso dengaku is a fusion take of the nasu dengaku (miso glazed aubergine), replacing the aubergine with the highly calorific foie gras. Who knew foie gras and miso is such a good match, topped with black sesame paste and sandwiched with sesame crackers and candied orange. My god, it's even better paired with the sesame cracker. The taste of the sesame did not overpower the creaminess of the foie gras, it just melts in the mouth. The Scottish salmon tartare with crispy skin was well presented perhaps with the crispy skin stealing the show. It was one hell of a crispy fish skin, of seabass I think. The crispest I ever had, just crisp and not hard which complemented with the soft texture of the salmon.

Such a funky presentation of a flying prawn tempura, served with a thicken tentsuyu sauce in a test tube. Possibly the best tempura in London. It was light, fluffy and crispy. No sight of oiliness. My only criticism was the prawn is slightly overcooked, but I won't complain since the tempura batter is so good. Eventhough I only took one bite of it before my allergic flared up, it was excellent. Teriyaki yellowtail was another enjoyable dish, teriyaki sauce seems to go with everything. I do not know what beef net is, even with a search on google it doesn't tell me anything. Could it be the spongy texture thing on the plate (?), which I don't know what it is but it was tasty. The decorating greens has a weird texture, not much of flavour and again I don't know what it is. There are four things that I can identified, a sliced of lotus root, a steak of yellowtail with teriyaki sauce and the brown splodge of yuzu miso. Next came the ishiyaki sukiyaki, wagyu shoulder cooked on high heat. It is not your traditional sukiyaki with meats and vegetables cooked hot pot style. This is more like a stir fry style of sliced wagyu beef in a soy mirin sauce with julienne of spring onions and onions served in a extremely hot stone pot. The heat of the pot will cook the beef, as though if you were cooking it yourself on the table. Beef was very tender and moist and I couldn't stop eating the onions/spring onions that tasted so sweet with the sauce.

Last of the mains was the Omakase Sushi Eight, served with roll of the day - salmon, pickled daikon and avocado. Decent sushi roll, the sushi rice is well cooked and seasoned. Normally you get a tiny dabs of pickled ginger, but at Yashin you get a big chunk of pickled ginger. Chef's selection of nigiri served without soy sauce with white seabass, otoro tuna, yellowtail and salmon. Don't exactly remember what's on the fish beside the tomato jelly on the salmon and the rice was blow torched around the edge to give a crispy outing. Despite the small sushi menu, the sushi was exceptional. What I liked the most is you can taste the freshness of the fish and whatever else is added does not overshadow the fish.

Desserts was beautifully presented and exemplary delicious. The black sesame "brûlée", sesame tuile and cookie with white sesame ice cream was overloaded with sesame flavour. The sesame tuile acted as the hard caramel layer of the traditional crème brûlée. The matcha mousse, kinako streusel, white chocolate and matcha sorbet was a gorgeous dessert, a must try for matcha fan. Both desserts are highly executed and skilled, the flavours and the textures married onto one plate.

To accompanied the savoury dishes, we started of with a carafe of Shirakabegura白壁蔵, Junmai sake - 300ml for £20 (rrp £30.70 for a bottle). Described as a delicate balance of soft acidity with gentle Junmai flavour. As our new fond of sake interest sparked up, one carafe was just not enough. We went for a carafe of Ura Gasanryu裏雅山流, honjozo sake - 300ml for £24 (rrp £28 for a bottle). This was more of light, fresh and crisp. Ura Gasanryu should of have been drank at the start, as Kawatsuru was more of a complex style and drier. With the desserts, we had sencha and houjicha, from the AOI tea company (which I've not heard of before). The teas was served too hot, the brewing temperature is overly hot and not brewed long enough so it tasted very mild.

We were taken away by the wonder of food (the freshest of the fresh fish), the impeccable service of willing to explain everything in details, the extensive sake list in addition to wine, a very stylish and modern décor and sophisticated ambience. There is no one element that I can fault, maybe the tea and the price. This could perhaps be the best Japanese (with the exception of ramen) food that I have tasted yet in London.

Whenever people ask me which are my favourite Japanese restaurants, I always mention Yashin (MMMMM) as one of them. I was therefore very excited when Yashin opened another restaurant called Yashin Ocean House on Old Brompton Road, South Kensington. Just like Yashin, Yashin Ocean House is a modern Japanese restaurant that serves delicious sushi and other Japanese dishes. One of the problems with Yashin has always been that it is quite a small restaurant, which does make it intimate, but means you are sometimes quite squeezed in there, and they have taken this on board and Yashin Ocean House is much bigger and feels different to Yashin. Whilst at Yashin half the seats are around the bar where you can watch sushi chefs make the most amazing sushi and sashimi, in Yashin Ocean House you do have some seats by the bar, but you mainly sit by tables. Yashin

OK, I’ll be up front from the start, Japanese food is not really our forte. The hot variety – yes. Sushi and sashimi – no. We like ramen, love a Katsu curry, I enjoyed Nobu despite leaving hungry and penniless. We attempted sushi and sashimi again recently at Sake No Hana, Ade succeeded but I just still can’t get on with it, not in the extreme way I am with cheese but it’s a struggle. Karl Pilkington got it right on an Idiot Abroad when after battling with some sushi in Japan he said ‘that’s not a meal, it’s more like a challenge. My taste buds have just been mugged.’

I decided the best way forward for a fair review of Yashin Ocean House was to bring a friend who loves sushi. I couldn’t have timed it better as after a heavy bank holiday weekend my companion was more than willing to treat her body to some healthy food. This South Ken restaurant just off Gloucester Road is from the team behind Yashin on High Street Kensington and has built itself up with some pretty impressive credentials. For a start, the chef patrons are Yasuhiro Mineno, ex-head chef at the now defunct Ubon by Nobu is renowned for his knife-skills, and Shinya Ikeda, ex-head chef at the prestigious (and also no longer) Yumi restaurant. Former chef de partie at (the still trading) The Fat Duck, Daniele Codini is senior sous chef.

The greeting at Yashin Ocean House was so warm and friendly, it was pretty quiet when my friend and I first arrived but it soon filled up. Our soundtrack for the night was some kind of weird electronic music that even Shazam couldn’t identify. The building is fantastic and unusual – a former library with an atrium roof, the decor a mix of sleek and rustic – brown leather banquettes, beaten up exposed brick walls with a turquoise green kitchen island taking centre stage. Oh and rather randomly, there’s a life-size black horse lamp in the room. Talking of animals, luckily for me, the meat ratio on the menu seems to have catapulted from how things were when they first opened as a head to tail fish restaurant.

There’s nothing more unsettling in a restaurant than not knowing what things are and how you’re meant to tackle them, sometimes it’s better the devil you know. But at here any fears of a Pretty Woman snail cracking moment were put to one side. Everything was explained in a warm and non-patronising manner, although we still went wrong by eating soup off a plate, but I’ll get on to that in a bit.

Thankfully the menu here is simple, but it comes clipped to an A3 slab of wood which is pretty annoying to fit on the table without breaking stuff. We started off with some gorgeous sweet and aromatic sparkling Mio sake £23 for 300ml, so refreshing and light. A little amuse bouche arrived of raw tuna and mango, I actually quite enjoyed it, perhaps I should give sashimi another go (I didn’t).

My sushi-loving friend was going to be the raw fish taster for the night whilst I was sticking mostly with the cooked stuff. Anna’s selection of Sashimi £16 arrived on a glass stand complete with a dramatic pouring of dry ice creating a magical lingering white swirling cloud. She loved the vinegary jelly pearls that bought out the flavour of the fish, the ginger and mackerel was especially good. Meanwhile I dug into a bowl of plump Cod cheeks with chilli amazu £7.80 – again vinegar made an appearance in the sweet sauce, I wasn’t too sure about the straw-like clumps though, they were impossible to chew, whatever they were, I don’t think they wanted to be eaten.

We also shared a starter of Yaki Yose Tofu £6.50 – homemade layered tofu with sweet wasabi sauce. Now this was nothing like we were expecting, it looked like a porridge/soufflé hybrid and came in a wooden bowl with wooden spoons, I felt like Goldilocks. Unfortunately it smelt like a pet shop and the taste wasn’t a huge improvement. Neither of us had ever eaten tofu in this way and we didn’t know quite what to make of this wet, soup like mixture. Perhaps if the wasabi content was stronger it would have helped the dish but it was just too milky.

Yep, we’re still on the starters I’m afraid. Wagyu beef loin with wasabi dressing £13.50 was another first. We were keen to try this and it didn’t disappoint and went really well with the aniseedy daikon sprouts and white leek. Moving on from the sparkling sake we were given a glass of Kawatsuru £10.50, in the traditional style which I’d never had before. The small glass is put inside a fragrant wooden box and the sake poured to the brim, you can either drink the liquid which has overflowed straight from the box or pour it back in the glass.

In the manner of tasting, we swapped our (hot) mains halfway through. Teriyaki Yellow Tail in beef net with yuzu miso £19.50 had a punchy purple carrot smear and strange little fluffy green florets. Saikyo Sugi with Nasu Miso £23 was the polar opposite, muted by hazelnut and aubergine alongside a sprinkling of samphire.

The good thing about this kind of food is that there is always room for dessert. Miroir chocolat £10 for me – a decadent and highly intricate plate complete with gold leaf and edible flowers, so stunning and full of texture and great quality chocolate. Anna went for the Yuzu and white chocolate, shochu £12.50, a dessert equally as opulent as mine but light and lemony with a wonderful watermelon sorbet.

As we sipped the remainders of our sake we realised we were almost alone in the restaurant at just 9.30pm. Yashin Ocean House has all the makings of being an absolute hit – the only thing that concerns me is that it could become another neighbourhood restaurant victim, a bit like our beloved Assiette Anglaise in Islington. You can guarantee if they picked it up and moved it to Mayfair it would have no worries at all, unfortunately not all restaurants can have prime positions. It was certainly a meal to remember for me and most importantly, gets a massive thumbs up from my Japanese food-loving dinner companion. Eating here doesn’t have to cost a bomb either, the express lunch menu is just £19.50, ideal for eating on the terrace, or the express dinner menu is £24.50. It absolutely turned my head and charmed me, I’d return in a heartbeat.

These Brompton road premises have seen a number of restaurants over the years. For a long time the building was home to a Scandinavian restaurant called Lundums, then the lovely but ill-fated Ambassade de l’Ile, then the less lovely Bistro K. Now it has been taken over by the owners of Yashin Sushi, who in September 2013 opened it as Yashin Ocean House.

The dining room has counter seating as well as regular tables, able to accommodate 70 diners at one time. There are also two private dining rooms downstairs. The menu format is modern Japanese, though the chef who cooked my meal is Italian, Daniele Codini, who has worked previously at Tour d’Argent and Atelier Robuchon in Paris. The Japanese pastry chef, Seiko Kokubun, has also worked at Tour d’Argent and Waterside Inn, and more recently for two years at The Royal Oak.

There is a quite extensive sake list in addition to wines. The wine list was quite ambitious in that its 150 odd wines started at £24 but went up to £780, with very little below £40, and featured plenty of grander wines. Marcel Deiss Pinot d’Alsace 2011 was £38 for a wine that costs £15 in a shop, Greywacke Wild Sauvignon Blacn 2011 was £52 for a wine that retails at £23, and there were prestige offerings such as Gaja Piemonte Langhe Nebbiolo "Sori San Lorenzo" 2006 was £392 for a wine that will set you back around £280 in a wine merchant.

An amuse bouche of miso mousse in a mushroom consommé with parsnip root and raw button mushrooms was an enjoyable way to begin the meal. The parsnip provided a textural contrast to the soft miso mousse, with the mushroom broth having good earthy flavour (14/20).

Celeriac and crab (£11.50) were served with mayonnaise and a layer of tosazu (vinegar) jelly, with crab tuile, crab powder and eel sauce, with a little glass of crab consommé on the side. The delicate crab and the earthy celeriac flavour worked well together, the drops of eel sauce providing a deeper flavour (14/20).

Dry-aged sea bass (£8.30) was “instant smoked” for 20 seconds, then served on a salad of radicchio and dandelion with drops of coriander sauce. This was a pretty dish, the smoking mercifully light, though for me a bit more of the coriander sauce would have been welcome (13/20).

Yellowtail kama (£13.60) comprised yellowtail from Japan marinated in miso and then grilled, served with chilli and daikon (radish) mixed with vinegar jelly. The fish was carefully cooked, with crisp skin and firm flesh, the jelly and chill lifting the dish (14/20).

Freshwater eel (£17.20) is killed here in the kitchen rather than being pre-prepared, slow cooked in a water bath for 8 minutes at 60 degrees. It was served with a passion fruit sauce, freshly grated wasabi (the real thing from Japan, not the coloured horseradish in a tube that most London restaurants pass off as wasabi), vinegar jelly and eel sauce. The eel had quite good flavour, and the wasabi worked well with it; I am not entirely convinced about the pairing with sweet passion fruit puree, but this was still a nice dish (14/20)

“Miroir” chocolate dessert (£10) was made with Valrhona chocolate, with chocolate mousse and vanilla sauce inside a chocolate glaze on a biscuit base, with hazelnuts and walnuts, garnished with edible gold and flowers. This was a very pretty dish that had lovely flavour, the chocolate rich and the nuts providing a texture to complement the rich mousse. For me the vanilla ice cream could have had more vanilla flavour, but that is the only niggle This dessert could have easily come from a Michelin starred French restaurant (16/20 may be a mean score).

Service was very good, my waiter knowledgeable and enthusiastic. The bill came to £76 per person with just water to drink, though of course if you had fewer dishes or went for the £24 three course set lunch you would pay less than this. At dinner, with three courses and a modest wine, a bill might be of the order of £70 per person. Yashin Ocean House should do well: it has an interesting menu and very capable cooking in a pleasant dining room.

I booked this restaurant as a birthday treat for one of our group members. It was 12:30 on a rainy Easter Monday afternoon and the place was empty. But the staff were very welcoming and the airy, spaciousness of the restaurant was a nice ambient setting for the afternoon. The style of the restaurant was a well executed homage to the origins of the venue. It was previously a stable and there is a horse statue inside the restaurant. They have an open kitchen concept and have nice decorative elements around the restaurant in keeping with its original features. The service was exceptional. Fabio was so knowledgeable, clearly articulated the menu to us and entertained our toddler throughout the lunch. The other staff members were also delightful and friendly. The food also was in keeping with the excellent service. We had a variety of sushi dishes, as the tasting menu I had anticipated in ordering was only available during the dinner service. But we did not feel like we missed out. Each dish was carefully curated and well-balanced. We did miss the wasabi and soy sauce that we have been accustomed to having at Japanese restaurants, but we were informed that each item was already seasoned correctly. Which we would agree. We ordered the salmon donburi set, the omakase 8 set, prawn croquettes, octopus and for dessert crème brûlée, matcha tiramisu and baked cheesecake. We also had a variety of sake (cherry bouquet, prince and yashin). Our favourites dishes were the miso soup (very creamy and smooth); the seared salmon sushi in the omakase (melt in the mouth), the delicious prawn croquette and the matcha tiramisu, which was not overly tea (matcha) flavoured as you find in other restaurants. I would highly recommend eating at this restaurant and would certainly return.

Just enjoyed a terrific dinner here. The sushi was incredible and the service was delightful. Victoria was attentive and genuine and made the whole experience very fun. Could not recommend more for a summer evening.

I’ve been to Japan, and I’ve never had the same dining experience as I did there in Europe. Until I came to eat here. The food was beautifully prepared and the staff made the overall experience even more pleasing: very attentive and kind. Every bite of everything we had was excellent and beautifully prepared. We went for lunch so the prices were not too high, though we both agreed it was worth every penny

Fantastic sashimi and sushi! And service! Tanya and Naima who served us were super friendly and professional! Perfect evening!

The food is modern Japanese cuisine, we tried across the menu and it is just superb. Sashimi island is a feast to the stomach and to the eye. Tanya provided great service experience. Bravo.

Was there for my birthday and felt very welcomed. We opted in tasting menu. I’m happy with my choice because I had an overview across 7-8 different dishes with decent portion size. And it’s so obvious that they pay attention to presentation without making it weird or unnecessarily touristy.

Top quality Japanese 🇯🇵 cuisine. Fantastic presentation. Friendly and excellent staff. Cheetah fusion deco. Good priced set menu. Totally worth it. 🙌🏻 oh and the cocktails 🍹