Sake No Hana

23 St James's Street, Mayfair, London, SW1A 1HA - View on a map
Book online below or call 020 7925 8988.

BOOK NOW - Fast, Free & Confirmed

Overall 7.0
Food 7.5
Service 7.5
Atmosphere 7.0
Value 6.0

what the critics say

Zoe Williams - 6/10

Monday, December 20, 2010 - I carried on with the iron-pot black cod rice, and everything about this was great. The rice was sticky with gorgeous burnt bits at the bottom, and the egg, cod and spring onion all chimed in with different intensity and texture. C's sukiyaki rib of beef was unexceptional...The devil's in the ordering, basically. I would vouch with my whole heart for the sushi and sashimi. The charcoal-grill dishes looked and smelt wonderful from afar. The black pots are a little bit unpredictable.

Read full review

City AM

Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - We moved on to a plate of rich, squelchy sesame aubergine that was delicious - if you don't mind that uniquely pulpy texture of skinless grilled eggplant. Our plate of sushi was a solid, pleasurable mixture of melting sashimi and action-packed rolls. It was good but not a standout, so we hurried back to the rest of the menu, and got serious with great pink claws of Alaskan crab with ponzu butter (brilliant) and a whole sea bream cooked in magnolia leaf - huge, meaty, aromatic and, despite costing just shy of 40 quid, good value since you could easily share it.

Read full review

AA Gill - 1/5

Sunday, October 31, 2010 - The opulence has been removed, along with the very low tables, and replaced with a more utilitarian setting. The menu is simpler and shorter, but without being any more enticing. The shared food comes in numbers that never divide evenly by the people eating...We started with yakitori-style chicken wings - sticky, bony and filthy, like a hillbilly wedding reception. Seaweed salad, the dredgings from a terrapin's tank. The prawn and langoustine tempura was desperately overcooked - both dried out and soggy.

Read full review

Fay Maschler - 3/5

Thursday, October 21, 2010 - From Special Dishes we selected two items, figuring that here was where the chef strutted his stuff. Tonkatsu style (meaning deep-fried in panko crumbs) Iberico pork with the classic accompaniment of shredded white cabbage salad was a dish that could have a future in fast food (minus the healthy cabbage). Iron pot black cod rice was presented as constituent parts including sweet miso sauce mixed at the table. The result was light and inviting but not quite as wonderful as the kani no kama meshi at Roka in Charlotte Street where king crab and wasabi tobiko (flying fish roe) is strafed through rice.

Read full review

Marina O'Loughlin - 4/5

Tuesday, March 03, 2009 - Ripples of excitement from addicts have me haring to the sushi counter at Sake No Hana, The omakase they rustle up for us after some frantic consultation is as good as you'll get in London. Each wave is served in beautiful, handmade Japanese pottery, from a rustic bowl containing salad of mixed seaweeds, oyster and shimiji mushrooms and lotus root, to the pale, azure oblongs balancing thick, luscious slices of chutoro (medium fatty tuna) sashimi, buttery yellowtail and mackerel roll fragranced with shiso leaf…

Read full review

AA Gill - 3/5

Sunday, February 10, 2008 - It is a Japanese restaurant. Japanese food is the infinity pool of eating out. The name means something opaquely obvious and random in the Japanese way, like “sake’s good for you”. They make you take off your shoes, which I can’t bear. It’s a sort of striptease dress code. And, instead of sitting on the floor, which I hate even more, they’ve compromised and lowered the floor under the table. The effect is neither squatting nor sitting, more like trying to eat fish with sticks at an infant school. It’s arse torture.

Read full review

Jay Rayner

Sunday, February 03, 2008 - And that sums up the place. Sake No Hana is a genuine attempt to introduce people to something new. It's not their fault that some of us have come across this sort of thing before. The fact is there's no pleasing some people, and in this case one of those people is me.

Read full review

Terry Durack - 15/20

Sunday, January 06, 2008 - Sake No Hana is undoubtedly a class act, impressively designed as a conduit for some very fine talents. It remains to be seen if it has what most of us want from a Japanese restaurant. But then, I'm not entirely convinced it is interested in most of us in the first place.

Read full review

Mark Palmer - 7/10

Friday, January 04, 2008 - The great thing about Japanese food is that you can eat lots of it without feeling you've eaten very much at all. But the black pot has other ideas and we immediately regret requesting it: the meat is stringy, the sauce is sweet and what compounds our disappointment is that there's enough to feed four or five people.

Read full review

Guy Dimond - 5/6

Wednesday, December 12, 2007 - I suspect Sake no hana is one of those places you either love with a passion, or utterly fail to comprehend. It is definitely a place for people who adore Japanese food, and like eating and drinking outside their comfort zone.

Read full review

your comments review this restaurant

Great wooden setting, amazing food, excellent service. I am surprised I had never heard of this place in 7 years in London! Everything in the menu looks so tempting, it took us 15 min to decide what we were having! Loved everything, it was delicious and so well presented. Big highlight on the scallop sushi, simply fresh and melting, and also the Iron pot black cod rice!
Comment on this reader review

Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 8
Saturday, August 27, 2011

So disappointing! We went with the 50% off offer from TopTable (which annoyingly excludes sushi and sashimi). Portions were tiny (the tiniest oysters I'v ever seen in my vast experience of oyster eating), and even with the major discount it was very expensive. Much, much better Japanese food elsewhere.
Comment on this reader review

Gabrielle Koonin
Overall rating
Food 6 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 4
Thursday, August 18, 2011

Very cool Japanese: great space & very good cocktails and food. A very enjoyable evening in the heart of London. I shall go back
Comment on this reader review

Marta
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 8
Sunday, October 24, 2010

since the re launch and new chef the food is really very good, best tempura i have had in london. toban chilean sea bass is exceptional, friendly helpful service and a decent selection of sake .

it is not cheap but worth it for the quality
Comment on this reader review

shane
Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 9
Friday, October 01, 2010

not very impressive, sashimi quality was mediocre, and the cooked dishes were terrible.

Won't be going back.
Comment on this reader review

Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 2
Monday, September 20, 2010

With starter and main course we still left the restaurant hungry. With 40% off the food it was still expensive for the very tiny portions - and the small portions were not made up for by the flavour. I've never been to a restaurant and been told that if we buy the drinks on the lower half of the list (in this case the sake) they would 'taste horrible'. Why have 'horrible' tasting items on your list? I think they were aware we had booked to receive the 40% off the food deal, and treated us accordingly.
Comment on this reader review

SE - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 0
Thursday, January 14, 2010

A large group of us went there on a weekday night. I wasn't very impressed. Portions sizes were very small. Food tastes weren't memorable. The toilets are in a crazy place downstairs, you have to take a slow lift. The seating is uncomfortable. Don't think the average bloke will find this place very satisfying.
Comment on this reader review

Brent - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 2
Sunday, January 10, 2010

This is our fourth visit to Sake no Hana and the escalators seem gone for good. It was only in our first visit that we could climb in style!

This time we went for lunch and the menu is a bit different. than in the evening. We particulalrly enjoyed our choice of sushi (shame that Botan Prawn is never available) and sea bass prepared with miso sauce. Desserts were a high, with a fantastic white chocolate pistachio mousse with lychee sorbet. Service is fine and the atmosphere pleasant.

Negative side: I really hate the expedition to the ladies. It is extremely claustrophobic, with a dimly lit lift arriving at a lower ground floor that looks like a nuclear bunker.

Very positive side: 40% off offer make Sake no Hana worth value for money for even normal mortals on no coorporate accounts!
Comment on this reader review

Susana - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 7
Sunday, August 09, 2009

I went to Sake No Hana for lunch on a Tuesday.

Greeting- I don't know if the escalators were broken or they were trying to save money but we had to walk up them. Not the end of the world but a bit odd. They didn't offer to take our coats and we had to run back down to hand them over when we realised.

Atmosphere- The atmosphere was clean and quite stylish (probably best suited to a busy evening) but very plain like a more low budget affair, not remotely on the scale of places like Roka, Zuma or Yauatcha. I was looking forward to eating in the shoes off cushion area but was a little underwhelmed.

Service-The man on the door upstairs was very pleasant and polite but our waitress was not. There were only two other occupied tables and a waitress per table. Even so, we had to holler for our drinks. My friend is allergic to peanuts so when a rather nutty looking starter arrived we asked if there were any peanuts in it. She said she didn't think so and she'd ask the chef. 15 minutes later our starters had gone cold, we asked again and she came over and said she had asked the chef but she didn't have time to come over and tell us the answer because she was too busy. Considering the place was desolate, and the allergy is very serious, I thought this was an incredibly rude oversight.

Toilets- The loos themselves were nice but the only way to get there was to use 1 lift that services the entire building and runs very slowly so we were away from the table for a while each time.

Food- The food was good, the fish very fresh. But nothing I hadn't had before and often for alot less money.

Value- The meal came to £113 for 2. This was including a 40% off a la carte. We had just the right amount of food for a lunch, one modestly priced bottle of wine so I shudder to think how much it would have cost had it been dinner or full price. Service is charged 13%.

Asian food is my favourite, and I'm prepared to pay alot of money for a good experience but there are so many more fantastic Asian restaurants in London that seem much more interested in making it worth my while.
Comment on this reader review

Lindsay
Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 3 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 2
Wednesday, May 27, 2009

what the bloggers say

A Girl Has To Eat

Friday, January 02, 2009 - When a restaurant boasts the name of Alan Yau behind it, one cannot help but have high expectations. Alan Yau is the man synonymous the success of Hakkasan and Yauatcha, both Michelin star holders, and other well-known establishments such as Busaba Eathai, Wagamama and the recently-opened gorgeous Milanese bakery, Princi…there were just a few too many little things about Sake No Hana that niggled, notwishstanding the not-insignificant factor of its pricing and all too small portions.

Read full review