Kikuchi

This is one of the best Japanese restaurants in London. All the fish is perfectly cut and the rice is excellent. They even have ankimo and botan ebi (with the fried heads!), something that is every day in L.A. and NYC sushi bars but is unusual here. This is my new favorite joint in the UK.

generally the quality of all the non-​sushi/​sashimi items was of a high standard. Be aware there is minimum spending policy of £30 per person but to be honest it is difficult to spend less as at the end of the day, this restaurant is hardly cheap.

Good but completely overpriced. But hey. I’m an L.A. Girl trying to eat sushi in London.
Recommend the fatty tuna roll.

Divine! I’m normally not much of a tuna fan, but their fatty tuna blew me out of the water. Will definitely be back.

I have been to this restaurant many times and enjoyed copious amounts of the extra fatty tuna, which is some of the best in London. However I will never return. This evening I was refused entry because I was with my one year old daughter. Apparently children are not allowed as it upsets the «business customers». I was forcibly stopped even entering, whilst carrying my child. What kind of service is this??? If I’m spending £200+ on a meal for 2 then I do not expect to be vilified for having a child in tow. I am livid!!!

Best sushi I’ve had in London to date. You should go here if you care about the quality of the fish, they just serve great quality sushi, nothing fancy.
Certainly was not cheap, but the sushi was fantastic. Service was great and straightforward.

This place is definitely not worth it for sushi. The fish was of mediocre quality, ikura tasted horrible, and worst of all the neta was assembled onto cold shari (rice). #whotheheckeatcoldsushi??? Sushi is supposed to be served at room temperature or whichever temperature is optimum for that particular fish! But definitely not cold! Service was impeccably slow ==’ Overall, for this price it is not worth my time and a waste of calories.
For traditional sushi lovers, i recommend Sushi Tetsu. And for fusion, try Dinings.

upon booking you will be reminded that there is a min of £25min per person… don’t go thinking this will be hard to achieve…
the mataike mushroom and egg japanese style was yum. in broth, and was very filling for a starter. delicious. (£6)
i got the mixed sashimi platter on vinegar rice… very very good and fresh… had a range of sashimi pieces, tobiko and salmon roe (£28)
also had the beef skewer and the miso marinated cod… (£20) which was about 4 cm by 6 cm… that’s IT… a bit disappointing really.
it came to £85 for two ppl. a bit tooo steep really but yes… definitely delicious!!!
oh ny sushi how much i miss thee!!!

I don’t get the chance to travel to Japan with work any more. It’s just the occasional holiday these days and one of the things that makes the time until the next trip bearable is Kikuchi. I’m not sure I can add anything the other reviews haven’t said. Sure, it’s expensive but I’ve yet to find a more authentic japanese restaurant this side of, well, Japan.
The sashimi and sushi was outstanding, totally fresh and melt-​in-​the-​mouth. We followed it up with grilled aubergine in sweet miso paste and prawn tempura, again, both outstanding. We finished up with grilled sardine and miso soup. Service was brisk but friendly from a staff mostly, if not entirely, from Japan.
When we left, it was a shock to find ourselves in Tottenham Court Road and not Shinjuku.

I didn’t know this place existed until I ducked down this road on a lark. Boy was it a stroke of good luck. Totally authentic japanese eatery. Almost a bit overwhelming if not familiar with the language and culture. It seemed very serious about their food.
The place is small with a row of benches that all seemed to have reserved signs on them. We arrived at 6 pm and the sushi bar already had a hand full of people seated. The caveat with this place is that you must pay £25 per person in food minimum to be seated. What the hell i thought. We ended up spending way more than that. But you wouldn’t have to in order to get full. We just went cray cray with the ordering.
The food was superb. Fresh sashimi, the fatty tuna was divine, the sake was great, I’m not remembering exactly what I ate, i know… bad Unilocaler bad. But I can’t wait to go again, this place was really amazing.

I once took my small, Northern mother for a sushi blowout at Jenny’s in Manhattan, keen to introduce her to my new favourite thing. She flashed me a helpless pleading look as the enormous plate of mixed sashimi and nigiri landed and I hastily ordered her a side salad with (cooked) tuna before nailing the lot myself.
If you were a sushi newcomer, Kikuchi probably wouldn’t the most accessible entry into the world of high grade fish. Even for people who know their nigiri from his nitsume we had some problems with the ordering. The staff might be bright and friendly but given the extremely high ratio of Japanese customers, they assume that you know exactly what you’re doing here. Asking for advice on the sake generated confusedface from our waitress who stabbed the page at random and shrugged apologetically. Similar worry radiated when we asked whether we’d under ordered, although looking at my ever expanding stomach probably made that a more delicate question.
The supermodel of Japanese food, black cod, marinated in miso is one of my favourite plates in a good Japanese restaurant. It’s an expensive fish, but the flavour is divine, here it’s one of the best I’ve had. At £20 for a single fillet it’s steep, but against the £42 you’ll pay at Nobu it’s a steal. If you wanna spend a lot of money on food, go for sushi. Every time. It’s the food choice of the gourmet aesthete and the cash loaded philistine alike. The former seeking out the rare and the subtle, the latter seeking priceless ostentation. It’s overtaken caviar, even among the Russian super rich (though to be fair that’s probably more the influence of their fashion conscious girlfriends).
At the other end of the pricing spectrum, we shared a small hot plate of sliced fish cakes — thin patties of crab and shrimp and other white fish, compacted into a thinly fried slice, a grownup fish ball if you will.
Nigiri — a good selection freshly made, more fish than rice and every piece exceptional. We had 12 pieces to share, each with a different payload. Fatty o-​toro tuna was, as expected, the standout for flavour. Marbled like a fine steak, potentially an ecological worry but unavoidably gorgeous. Eel was dark and brooding, a tang of the esturine to go with the fresh flesh of the open sea. Buttery and sweet silken tuna reared its fin again as thickly sliced yellowtail sashimi, close to perfect for my gaijin tastes.
The only disappointment was a final menu Tourettes order of duck skewers, too quick off the grill and still shocked to tight chewiness by the lick of the flame.
The crowd are as you’d expect from a high-​ish end sushi joint in central London. There are a fair few tables of Japanese businessmen, interspersed with the odd couple on a special date night (guilty) and a scattering of braying hedge fundies, piling in with the sad acceptance that there’s nothing like this for them in Zug or Zurich.

Outstanding. Authentic. Owner behind the sushi bar making the magic happen.
The place was filled with Japanese business men and couples, which I always see as a good sign. Perhaps because I wasn’t Japanese they gave me a little bit of a hard time with repeated questions of whether I had reservation and whether I knew there was a £25 min per person.
After gaining their confidence I sat at the sushi bar for what was one of the best sushi meals I’ve experienced in London. Super high quality of fish and presentation of dishes. Nice Sake list which is expensive but also served in wooden boxes just like Blue Ribbon Sushi in NYC.
The sliced Spanish mackerel sashimi with spring onions in ponzu sauce was brilliant.
The omakase nigiri was fabulous as well. Previous reviews have mentioned poor quality rice but it was in proper form tonight.
In all, a true gem. I’ll definitely be coming back often and soon. Contender for best sushi in London.

Where do I begin??? The Unilocal reviews are really what drew me to dine here vs. any of the other better known sushi spots in London.
I know that London is not known for it’s sushi, but I was craving it, and couldn’t wait till I got back to LA to have it.
So I walk in to this place, and it was pretty crowded maybe one open two top and a couple seats at the bar. I told the hostess that it would just be myself. She said something to the chef, he said something back, then she told me, «Sorry.» I explained that I didn’t understand what she meant, I can wait for a spot, I have no problem with that. She simply told me, «No.» So instead of being a normal person and storming out and saying I would never go there, I was determined to eat there that night. I went back to my hotel and had them make a reservation.
There is a 25 Quid minimum per person, to eat there. When I came in there and said I had a reservation, she seemed upset. I quickly told her that I would spend 50 Quid no problem, she seemed a little happier.
So now to the food… I ordered Omakase (Chef’s choice) and was far from impressed. It was NOTHING even close to LA or SF sushi as people wrote previously. It was all Sashimi, and was mediocre at best. I ordered a few pieces of sushi after the Omakase plate, and the rice was horrid. Probably the worst sushi rice I had ever had.
I would say that they purposely sandbagged my meal because they didn’t like me for some reason, but I watched him cut the fish from the same pieces he used for everyone else, and they obviously didn’t make a new batch of horrible sushi rice for me.
Overall, I would not recommend that anyone visit this place ever. The only reason I gave it a 2^nd star is because I didn’t get sick.

A sushi to die for.
I took the chef’ special and it was pure poetry.
Every fish was like butter on my tongue even the always thick prawn.
I was in trouble using soy sauce because the nigiri was so well balanced in favour that the sauce could just ruin that perfect balance.
I’ve also got the tofu miso soup with mixed miso paste (so tell me in which jap restaurant they put on the menu options about the miso paste) and it was so tasty and the tofu was so fresh and firm… ahhh.
The only drawback of this otherwise fabulous venue is the price. For water, green tea, sushi, and miso soup I spent 40£.
So not a cheap place to go but believe me, it worth every single penny.
P. S. Try at least one nigiri with fatty tuna if you want to go to Nirvana and back.
P. P. S. The minimum order charge is about 25£. Expensive, but if you think that the chef’s special sushi (9 pieces) is around 23£ is not too difficult to reach it.

Hidden in a small street, Kikuchi is a real treasure. From the entrance you can tell the Japanese authenticity of the restaurant. If you want to have dinner there, I’d advise you to make a reservation: the place is small and well known from true Japanese food lovers.
The food I had there was truly amazing, probably the most delicious sashimi I’ve had so far ! But please don’t stop at the typical sushi-​sashimi and such, it would be a shame, Kikuchi offers more diverse food, some that you may not even have heard of… be adventurous. I’ve been there a few times, and we always took a small selection of sashimi to satisfy our craving as an «entry», but always went for an unknow main dish we’d share, it always turned out really really good. (Although I cannot exactly recall the name of what we took, because it has been a little while, my bad =(! Pretty sure it was some noodle soup at some point though !)
As for the alcohol, for some of them, you could by a bottle, and keep it in the restaurant for the next time you come, Japanese tradition for good clients I guess.
The service is really good, efficient and nice, although sometimes the English is not always good for some of the waitresses.

I thought I was back in Tokyo when I walked in, and for a few hours forgot I was in London. The sashimi and sushi is excellent. The chef remembers every order from each table as each waitress shouts the order one at a time, this is impressive enough.
Sushi price is reasonable but the sake price was a bit toppy… There is plenty of good sake that can be bought at a lower price but the menu seems to have that completely missing.
Go for the experience as well as the food.