For us, it started with Angelina. Japanese-Italian small plates that actually, really worked. And now, there are three newbies following suit.
First, it’s the Belgravia heavy hitter. Recently opened, Pantechnicon is a five floor behemoth dedicated to everything Japanese and Nordic. There’s the UK’s first Café Kitsune (Japanese), a retail space with 150 diff Japanese and Nordic designers and a boutique bar and bottle shop (Sakaya). There’s also a huge bar and roof garden with a retractable roof, and a lot more. Might be the shakeup that the newly pedestrianised Motcomb street needed.
Still on a Japanese tip, and back to the Japanese-Italian combo is Tokyo Pizza. With the choice of either an outdoor terrace or a dark, cosy basement to dine in, here you’ll find pizza with shiitake mushrooms, shishito peppers and Wagyu tataki for toppings and miso and okonomiyaki sauces for bases, with mochi bread and yuzu pepper guac, to start.
In Covent Garden, it’s Tandoor Tacos, the Indian-Mexican mashup that’s part of Tandoor Chop House. The tacos, however, aren’t your usual crispy affair – they’ve used paratha breads in taco format to house the mostly Indian ingredients. So more of an Indian taco than a true merger, but it’s still early days.
