Handroll bars are few and far between in London – and even still, the team at Kumori is keen to break with tradition. “We really want to push the boundaries with what you can make with the handroll,” founder Marc Flekei tells Broadsheet. “We want to have a really different menu to a lot of the other places, and things that people haven’t yet seen in London.”
The specialty – otherwise known as temaki, which means "hand-rolled" in Japanese – is made up of sushi rice and ingredients such as fish and vegetables wrapped in a crisp sheet of nori by hand, then passed straight to the palm of the diner who ordered it. “It’s like an omakase experience,” says head chef and Tobi Masa alumnus John Randy De Guzman. “Everything is made fresh in front of you and designed to [be] eaten immediately. Once the chef has made it, you need to eat it right away.”
Kumori began as a series of international pop-ups (including the Monaco Grand Prix and How Matcha in Marylebone). After several years of development, it’s bringing high-energy service to a 30-seater counter restaurant on Denman Street in lower Soho. Here, customers will find classic handroll flavours such as salmon and avocado, eel and cucumber, and tuna with spring onion. However, sitting pride of place in the line-up is something less familiar: a baked crab creation wrapped in soy paper. “It's quite a common thing in California, but I haven't seen it anywhere in London,” says Flekei. “One of the reasons being is, you can't find the soy paper [it’s wrapped in] anywhere in the UK, so we imported it.”
Offered on the tick-box paper menu, other signatures include hamachi (yellowtail) with chimichurri; eel with foie gras; and burnt salmon, offered with a pipette of soy-sauce for precision dripping. Otherwise, there’s a decadent caviar bump coming in at a bargain £12, a wasabi cucumber salad, and a clutch of tuna and salmon sashimi.
The drinks list offers up cheeky Japanese twists on classics, including a sakura Negroni featuring vanilla and cherry blossom in it; an Edo Old Fashioned with miso caramel and coconut water; and a yuzu mezcal Margarita. Meanwhile, an extensive sake list is available by the glass, carafe or bottle.
Designed by Cake Architecture (Soma, Watch House), the pared-back space with comfy, cloud-like stools and decorative vinyl glows sunset orange thanks to atmospheric colour-changing panels which Flekei will change up depending on the day’s vibe.
And while chefs move at speed to the beat of the carefully curated soundtrack coming from custom-built Big Ears speakers (“I spent hours and hours and hours, curating the playlist,” says Flekei) – he doesn’t necessarily want diners to rush. “People can come in for a quick lunch, order a set menu and be out in 20 minutes,” Flekei says, “or they can come and sit for an hour, an hour and a half, and come on a date for the evening”.
Kumori
26 Denman Street, Soho, W1D 7HX.
Hours:
Mon to Wed midday–10pm
Thu to Sat midday–11pm
Sun midday–9pm
