Review at a glance: ★★★★☆
Discretion and ostentation play at different ends of the pitch, though both draw crowds. In Berkeley Square last week a Maserati drove by sporting a “baby on board” sticker, which is either a half decent gag, a kink taken too far, or a literal sign the driver has their priorities in disarray. But Berkeley Square is built on flash. I don’t suppose the driver knows about Ikeda.
Still, as far as I can tell, no one has heard of Ikeda apart from absolutely everyone who’s anyone. I do not number among the anyones, and so had never come across the place until last week, despite it opening in 1973 as one of the country’s first Japanese restaurants. Owner Kenichi Ikeda says no newspaper critic has ever visited, which Google suggests is true (Andy Hayler’s reliably thorough blog does have an entry, however). On the other hand, by the loos are thank you notes from Mick Jagger, Cher, George Clooney, Steven Spielberg. Wes Anderson, I note, writes in felt tip, the child. There’s been a lot of chatter about A-lister restaurants lately but come on, this pisses all over Lily Allen and Gary Lineker at Dorian.
There are probably two reasons for Ikeda’s everyman anonymity. From the outside it’s featureless, with an adornment-free pale cream frontage that’s usually reserved for the sort of boutique that sells candles for the soul and handbags at fifteen grand. The other could be Ken’s dad, who until the 1990s refused to let Westerners in, instead preferring the endless tabs of overseas business accounts. Now suited sorts mix with those with a subtler type of money.
Inside is the Wiltons of Japanese restaurants. Old school and hush-hush. Where other places decline to take Amex, here you wouldn’t be surprised if it were the reverse. It is carpeted and plain, entirely without embellishment. The place to sit is the counter in front of the chefs. They do not do chatter; they work. Steel pans dented from decades of use are jumped between hobs and flashed beneath a scowling grill. A reservoir of oil sits with a stillness that only extreme heat brings on, frothing as prawns are coated for tempura. Lots of fun is had with blowtorches.
Read more: David Ellis reviews Wiltons — Elegance and charm from a lost world
Waitresses in kimonos offer the kind of service that is built on as little interruption as possible. Explanations can be requested but recitations do not come as standard and while omakase is offered, actually they’re happy to leave it up to you. Any obvious judgements of aberrant orders are thankfully suppressed. I know because I first went with Fallow restaurateur James Robson, who did a lot of pointing and waving and no one batted an eyelid.
The aubergine was as gooey as a rom-com and twice as comforting
But that meal doesn’t count as he convinced me to have sake — the selection is apparently very good — and so I woke up the next morning wondering if my Uber had crashed on the way home. Still, lunch came a week later: miso soup felt like a tonic to all of life’s ills, its goodness soaking into my blood but also travelling into my past and scribbling out the bad bits. Slivers of pink-tinged amberjack arrived, folded into petals, sweet and pure tasting. Nasu dengaku here means aubergine in slices, not halves, weighting the balance of flavour in favour of the caramel and malt of the sweet miso spread thickly across the top. The aubergine itself was as gooey as a rom-com and twice as comforting.
From chef’s sushi selection came boldly striped salmon, delicate sweet shrimp held to its Kansai-style rice with a belt of nori, soy-glazed eel, pinkish sea bream. Unusually soft squid had its carved spikes blackened from the torch. There was fatty tuna that tasted of French butter and melted the same way, and after that I left thinking perhaps it was sushi as good as any I’ve eaten. But by then I was patting a belly full of unaju, the barbecued eel with teriyaki sauce, and thus liable to say anything.
Places like this usually come with titanic bills and the corresponding sinking feeling. True, wine is mostly marked up in a way that’s only favourable to the restaurant — though eccentrically, Dom Perignon 2009 is cheaper here than online — but Ikeda can be done carefully; we left at £175, preferring it to £420-a-head Sushi Kanesaka. In that sense, it felt like good value — those seeking a blow-out could easily triple the bill. Michelin should visit. At their own discretion, of course.
Meal for two anywhere from about £180. 30 Brook Street, W1K 5DJ, ikedarestaurant.com
