A lavish Maltese-owned Japanese restaurant has opened in a Grade II-listed former bank in Marylebone. Converted at a reputed cost of £15million, it features a cocktail bar in what was the underground safety deposit vault.
Aki – from ‘akitsu’, an old Japanese word for dragonfly – is a short walk from Oxford Circus in Cavendish Square. The second edition of a restaurant that opened in Valetta in 2020, it marks the international debut of Malta’s Lifestyle Group.
According to its website, Aki’s kitchen hosts 80 modular farms – “each a miniature ecosystem” to provide herbs and vegetables native to Japan “with no need for carbon-heavy transport. Seaweed flourishes in coconut husk, tended without pesticides, while rare leaves and blossoms are nurtured in step with the seasons. The same principles guide every choice, from foraging ingredients across the UK to making pickles in-house with nukadoko, the fermented rice bran central to Japanese preservation.”
The menu is conceived as “a modern expression of Japanese dining” blended with Malta’s “heritage of craftsmanship and closeness to nature…. Golden Maltese honey lends a delicate sweetness to selected dishes, while bluefin tuna, treasured in both Maltese and Japanese traditions, takes pride of place on the menu.”
Dishes range from sashimi and nigiri (both available as omakase meals) to a selection of robata grill dishes, wagyu, Kobe beef sukiyaki and other large plates.
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