Umu

Overpriced, don’t go if you are looking for sushi.
After 3 days in Paris and a couple more here in London, having dined on fabulous but very heavy food, our group of four was ready for a great sushi meal. Based on sterling reviews, we booked Umu. The restaurant is on a back street, tucked away and is very beautiful. We were offered champagne (not free) upon being seated. The first disappointment was the menu. The tasting menu looked intriguing but included beef and rabbit as well as several other cooked dishes, not what we were looking for. In the absence of omekase sushi, I ordered sushi a la carte. The charge per piece (ONE) was from 9 – 14 pounds. I got 2 yellowtail, 2 ikura and 2 pieces of toro/​shishito. The ikura rolls were about the size of an American quarter, contained about 1 ½ tsp of ikura, with some loosely wrapped nori and rice. These rolls fell apart as I attempted to eat them, scattering rice over my lap and the table. A waitress appeared with a rolled up wet towel. I was mortified. The toro shishito consisted of a paper thin slice of cooked toro, a whole roasted pepper and similar rice. They were also tiny. The pepper was overpowering to the dry minuscule morsel of fish. The yellowtail also was tiny, about a 1 ¼ inch thin piece of non remarkable fish. I’m not sure which of my rolls was poorest but one left a fishy taste in my mouth akin to how one feels about an hour after consuming a tuna fish sandwich and forgetting to brush one’s teeth. Worse, my 6 mouthfuls cost me about $ 100. My dining companions ordered the sashimi plate. Imagine a plate the size of an American dessert plate and just enough fish to cover about ¾ of it. Total bill for 4 glasses of champagne 3 vodkas and this food order? Over $ 600.

quite expensive. service is okay but not superb.
food is good, but not astonishing either.
my wife thinks it is excellent, but I am only giving 4 stars.

I love Kaiseki cuisine and my favorite restaurant closed so I decided to try another one.
The restaurant is very pretty and situated in very fancy Mayfair. It’s definitively a place you go to impress someone (there’s no visible sign outside, you have to put you hand on a panel and the wood door opens itself)
The Kaiseki menu is composed of 8 small dishes and it was really delicious. It was almost as good as what I tried in Japan.
They also have a very impressive list of sushi/​sashimi.
The best dish was, surprisingly, the dessert: a pear cheesecake that was so soft, so melty… Probably one of the best dessert I had.

Incredible Kaiseki in an über cool ambience. If want to explore what Kaiseki is, watch the Chef’s Table episode on Netflix featuring Niki Nakayama before dropping £115 for the set menu. But worth every bit. Delicate, formal and well executed.

I’ve tried many Japanese restaurant but this time I think it’s just average. The quality of sashimi didn’t meet its price. The Umu sushi was creative, but the taste was just OK. Maybe it is because here is uk and you can’t expect so much about Japanese food. Though the decoration and the dessert was good, I didn’t feel the mains in Umu was worth the price.

One of the best Japanese restaurants I’ve tried. It’s so tucked away on the corner of a pedestrian path you could easily miss it. Pretty pricy when you let the chef decide what to serve, which usually includes the most amazing Kobe beef ever, but it’s well with it. Great saki menu as well. Sitting at the bar is a fun experience too. Plan ahead. Tough to get reservations sometimes.

One of the best Japanese in London, makes the other look overrated .
The sushi and the wagyu grade 11 Japanese it just melts in ur mouth
And finally adding the chocolate fingers at the end makes it an abomination

As a huge fan of Japanese food. I would say I went to most of the Japanese restaurant. The very first time I went to here was last year about October time. I swore to my friend it was the most tasty Japanese food in London. Sea urchin, eel, wagyu beef etc was awesome. My friend said she could even more agree wiz me. One month later, I ordered the nigiri and sushi. Unfortunately it was not that good as last time. Last few weeks ago. I visited it again. The food was not that good, either. Can anyone tell me what happened?

Overall, great food, outstanding service and nice atmosphere except for the elevator music. A fairly loyal take on a Kyoto style Japanese food (I lived in Japan for nine years). Very fresh seafood — we had the sashimi and sushi platters because we couldn’t decide. There were the usual suspects, hamachi/​amaebi/​maguro, but also local fish from Cornwall which was something new utilising ‘local’ ingredients. The tofu was delicious and made using only Japanese sourced ingredients. The wagyu beef tataki was nice but not as tender as I expected — the fat wasn’t quite marbled enough through it. The service was beyond attentive to the point of being perfectly coordinated — my green tea was never cold and regularly topped up; the dishes were explained without being too in-​your-​face; polite talk without being overbearing. A great experience and I would highly recommend.

I ate here last Friday for a business meeting. It had impressive ambiance and decent service. Although not the easiest restaurant to get into, the food was surprisingly authentic. Would recommend to friends and will likely be coming back soon.

Must Try Grade 9 Wagyu beef! That was amazing! The sea urchin was fresh and really rich. The most favourite dessert Match Tiramisu used matcha green tea and Ginjo Sake together which was really different as usual Italian tiramisu.

A beautiful restaurant with great food. The service was excellent and the sushi and sake pairings were superb. Nobu used to be my favorite London sushi restuarant until now.

This place is super glamorous, elegant and polished, with extraordinary sashimi. Much of it is apparently sourced from Cornwall and I must say, it is of exceptionally high quality. I’ve never tasted better. The tuna belly almost melted in the mouth. The white fish was delectable. Walking into this place felt like we’d been transported into a scene from a Bond movie –honestly. Delicious food, excellent service, and very special ambience. But damn, the bill was steep…

Yummm, but, my goodness, expensive.

Had dinner here with clients on Thursday. The lawyers were paying so I shouldn’t complain about the price but it was astonishing how much dinner was.
We had the tasting menu, which was generally really good, and full of interesting things which I hadn’t ever had before such as caviar, salmon eggs and monkfish liver. However, for the price everything should have been fantastic and a couple of the courses didn’t really work — the venison course was quite dry and didn’t have enough sauce, as the salmon and rice dish was a bit plain. I can see someone below has made a comment about the food generally being a bit bland which I agree with, so only four stars overall.

The best Japanese restaurant I have ever been to in my entire life!
Tucked away in this inconspicuous non-​dodgy little alley off of extravagant
Bond Street, is this beautiful James-​Bond-​esque feel of a restaurant.
If there was an award given out for restaurant main entrance doors, this would get first first place in my book. Very exclusive, very small (portions and seating), very expensive, and very intimate! I have come here about four times in total, and each time for a special occasion. The service is unparalleled to that of any other. Each plate looks like an art piece and tastes like nothing you’ve ever had before. The flavors are fresh from Japan with some tastes of the authentic old and sublime new. They even import their drinking water from Japan! Just don’t come here on an empty stomach because you wont leave feeling full or you’ll end up breaking the bank trying to!

I have dined here 4 times over the course of the year and have seen a noticeable improvement in service and the quality of the food. Hotate sushi is sublime and haunts my dreams. Kaiseki is inventive but exorbitant. Sake list is extensive and the sommelier is very knowledgeable. Toyobijin was a good recommendation for flavour and price. Décor is okay but not outstanding. They employ a lot of darkness to hide imperfections. Overall, a strong contender for premium Japanese dining in London and kudos for offering something different in an already crowded marketplace. I would give it 5 stars if it wasn’t so inordinately expensive. Be mindful that you don’t go here to satisfy hunger (portions are lilliputian) but to amuse the taste buds.

Excellent quality fish, sparkling presentation, and not flashy enough to attract the «OK Magazine» fodder from Nobu. On the flip side — ferociously expensive, service can be hit and miss (if your lunch runs into the afternoon), and you do occasionally get flocks of strategy consultants/​M & A experts/​venture capitalists in here burning client money. So, in summary, if somewhat offered me a free slap-​up feed here, or three at less august Japanese establishments I could name, it would be a tough call.

Umu seemed to have made some improvements in time for our last visit and can now have 5 stars! The service seemed to be less clingy and the music seemed to have calmed down to feature bland elevator japanese. We are here to eat and drink after all…
The food is as good as ever and I must say last time I was very impressed by the Japanese sommelier as she remember what sakes I had the previous time I visited (over 1 month has passed and my sister had went with her in laws without me in that time) and was able to tell me which one we preferred; and also recommended and matched new sakes to the meal we were having (and at a price range we were willing to pay). She is an absolute star and totally made our meal!
Oh and I finally figured out which was the men’s bathrooms and which was the ladies. Only luck has saved me from embarrassments induced by sake and super discreet signage.

Umu is a lovely little spot tucked into an attractive little side street in Mayfair near Bond Street.
The restaurant itself beautiful designed; warm and dark, yet not overly so, with a wooden lattice screen partially obscuring the refrigerated shelves holding the sake at the back and warm wood everywhere.
The food itself is very good Japanese with some Western influence.
Overall I found the flavours to be delicate and balanced as they should be with some surprising combinations, such as chuu-​toro salad with tsukemono and cashew or the «Kyoto Sundae» with melon and tofu ice cream (not green tea, thanks) with mochi and green tea cakes
While the fusion menu items were good, I found in general I liked the more traditional preparations the best. The teriyaki «skill fish» entrée was very good with amazing attention to detail. The sushi selections we made were very fresh, high in quality and presented perfectly.
The sake list is possibly the most comprehensive I’ve seen outside Japan. There were at least 5 pages of sake separated by prefecture. Sake by the glasses were also listed on the first page.
Now for the bad.
In general I found the service to be very intrusive. The constant interruptions of my dinner conversation were alternately annoying and absurd. The waitstaff readily pounced upon any chance to refill even the most nominally drained water glass, and often felt compelled to offer the most inane of commentary to accompany the courses.
I understand that attentive service is the cornerstone of fine dining, but might I recommend that the front of the house staff spend slightly less time observing the water glasses and plates of the patrons and more time observing the patrons themselves. are they engrossed in conversation? then leave the mostly full water glass alone. Is one patron still finishing a course? Then wait until all patrons are finished before clearing the settings.
Another mild annoyance was the suggestion of wine with Japanese food without mentioning their extensive sake list.
One should also know that Umu is on the pricey side and should bear this in mind when planning a trip here. I could imagine an evening meal either a la carte or prix fixe going from £90 to £200+ with drinks included. This may or may not be worth the price to you.