London’s sushi-heavy restaurant scene often gives a narrow impression of how varied Japanese cuisine can be. “Ramen is for everyone,” Robin Kosuge tells Broadsheet. “Everyone has a chicken noodle soup memory, which is essentially what ramen is. Yet there’s not enough of it here.” Now Kosuge, along with the duo behind Notting Hill’s Dorian, executive and co-founder chef Max Coen and co-founder Chris D’Sylva, has opened Robin’s Ramen, a pop-up inside D’Sylva’s specialty grocer Supermarket of Dreams.
Coen agrees there’s “an obvious gap in the market in Notting Hill” for good ramen. But he says his enthusiasm for the dish came only after visiting Japan earlier this year. “I saw how good ramen could be with the best products, which is in line with what we do at Dorian. It’s about little touches of magic, but not pushing the boundaries too far.”
For Kosuge, that “magic” comes from meticulous sourcing. His guiding principle is fidelity to place, not origin: almost all the ingredients in his signature shio ramen come from England and Europe, rather than Japan. “The water is softer in Japan, which straight away makes the broth taste different,” he says. To counter that, his base begins with three types of salt from France and England, which balance salinity and minerality. Noodles are a part-rye blend by Komugi Noodles in Manchester; pork comes from the Lake District; cockles from Wales; and the vegetables – crisp, mustardy komatsuna (a leafy green) and spring onions – are grown at Namayasai, a Japanese-vegetable farm in Sussex.
Kosuge’s recipes also reflect his Polish-Japanese background and time at Dorian. Half the stock bones for the shio ramen are roasted – “a French technique we use at Dorian; most ramen shops in Japan don’t even have ovens” – while root vegetables common in Polish rosol (soup) add an earthy sweetness. The shio ramen is offered for lunch and dinner. At lunch, diners can eat their noodles at cafe tables in the kitchen, or opt for outdoor seating, where there are custom-made “tabletops smaller than steering wheels”, says D’Sylva.
Before dinner service, crates of produce are cleared away and a long display case is topped with planks which jigsaw into a communal table. Even with the nighttime updo, the space retains a casual feel. Every seat in the house is a stool. But details like thick black curtains blocking out Holland Park Avenue and dim candlelight make the setting feel playful, rather than unfinished.
The evening menu expands to include a ramen topped with plump Scottish lobster, a vegan bowl with a pistachio-and-matcha-thickened broth and a char siu-heavy rendition called the Pork Hell Remix. Most proteins are cooked over fire to add “intense depth of flavour and smoke”, says Kosuge. Starters range from a tuna tartare-topped rice cracker to venison tempura.
The drinks selection pulls on Dorian’s robust wine list. A fresh selection of sake and beers on tap balance the burgundy-rich wine selection.
After a four-month stint at the supermarket, Robin’s will move into a permanent location nearby, as will Urchin, the “Japanese bistro” by chef Yuji Kelly that occupied the supermarket prior. The group is also behind Eel Sushi, which opened in the summer. It all comes back down to D’Sylva’s original business, the Notting Hill Fish Shop, and its turn towards sushi during the pandemic. “I wasn’t in the sushi business, I was in the fish business,” says D’Sylva. “But the greatest ad for the quality of our fish was to lay it naked in front of the customer, and that’s in the form of sushi.”
The fish shop’s mid-pandemic sushi production attracted a group of out-of-work chefs trained in Japanese restaurants that included Kelly and Kosuge. Now, they’re partially responsible for steering the future of the business.
This is Kosuge’s first role as head chef. After eight years of focusing on fine dining and intricate pastry, he’s looking forward to bringing his attention to a dish that’s mostly been offered by chains in the capital. “I want people to see ramen as something worth more care than fast food.”
Robin’s Ramen
Supermarket of Dreams, 126 Holland Park Avenue, W11 4UE
020 3 924 9246
Hours:
Mon & Tue midday–3pm
Wed to Sun midday–3pm, 6pm–11pm
