Kibou

Really excellent food.

There used to be a Michelin recommended yakitori (Japanese skewers) restaurant on this site but that sadly closed quite a few years ago when I moved into the Wimbledon area and I never got a chance to try it
It was then owned by the owners of Confucius restaurant across the road but the site was again never developed into a restaurant
Kibou has now opened and it shows how busy I’ve been in the last few months that I was told that they’ve been opened for 3 months and I had only noticed it in the last fortnight. A new restaurant opening in my hood and me not noticing — tsk!
Anyway, I arranged to rectify this deficit immediately and paid them a visit for lunch this Sunday
I’m not sure if it’s a nod to the heritage of this site but they do offers a variety of grilled skewers in addition to the usual Japanese fare of sushi, bento boxes, etc. I did time my visit well as they were runni9ng a 20% discount on grilled dishes like the skewers
I plumped for the sashimi bento box which offered a variety of 3 fishes as well as vegetable and prawn tempura together with rice and Japanese pickles. A complementary miso soup arrived as well. I also took advantage of the discount offer by ordering 3 skewers — beef, pork belly and chicken with spring onion
I did enjoy the sushi, which was fresh though the salmon was perhaps not quite as sweet as at Noodle Foodle just down the road. I was also missing some gari (pickled ginger) in the box. The tempura was crispy and the batter was nicely seasoned. The miso soup has some nice cubes of tofu swimming prettily. The skewers were a little disappointing in that they tasted very similar and were crying out for some sauce to bring out the flavours of the meat
Overall, a nice addition to the area and the skewers are something which isn’t currently available at any of the local restaurants. However, if I had to choose, I’d probably pop to Noodle Foodle for my fix of sushi and tempura