Chotto Matte Soho

Buzzing vibe, great food and great atmosphere. The food tastes great and makes a perfect night out.

Delicious food, fun environment & location and great service.

Everything is great and more importantly I can usually get a table when I want to, unlike so many other popular restaurants in London.

I had wanted to eat at Chotte Matte and when my friend suggested Sushi or something like that I thought, I know the perfect place. Sadly, I made a mistake and should have ventured to Sushisamba. The food is truly amazing, a fantastic menu which features the Tostaditia Moradas ( classic was best out of the trio), luxurious sushi and sashimi platters, the 12 piece sashimi was to die for. My favourite dish was definitely the beef tataki as the mix of flavours really complemented each other perfectly. The California roll was perfect. So Food wise, I give it 9/10, I believe that every restaurant has room for improvement. The atmosphere is very cool and trendy with tables within 30cm close of the next table. So if you don’t like being very close neighbours, this isn’t the restaurant for you. The acoustics in there don’t lend themselves to being heard very well. However, the service was what let’s this restaurant down in a monumental way, you feel like you’re on a conveyer belt, if they could feed you and get you out in 45 minutes they would. On the night I went they had a catastrophic technical meltdown, no wifi. So sadly, the waiter looking after us tried to make the payment system work but due to the wifi down, the computer officially said no. We were found a seat downstairs and continued to have a further drink. We wanted to leave, I needed to get a train home (which I missed), I no longer live in London, after several requests to pay the bill from upstairs and the bill for the drinks, in frustration, we left. Something I have never done before and hope never to do again in the future. I duly called the restaurant in the morning to request to pay and to explain my frustration and was told the Manager would call me back. I never complain but my evening was somewhat ruined. The manager did duly call me back finally on Saturday night and apologised. He kindly advised me that they had indeed charged my card later that night (lovely to be have been notified of that) he offered me the 2 cocktails free and was told that I would be looked after and or possible drinks on my next visit. I personally feel that if I’m going to spend over £160 for dinner and drinks, I wouldn’t be looking to spend my money there. So yes food great but everything else rather poor in my opinion and your money is best spent in an alternative establishment. I’m disappointed to finally write a review recommending people not to dine here.

I first visited this restaurant 2 years ago, firstly for a showcase event and then another two times with friends. Last night we had the pre-theatre bento box including a glass of prosecco which was £25 plus we ordered pisco sours (delicious) and another glass of prosecco each. The service was impeccable. The pre-theatre dinner menu was excellent. I highly recommend you try Chatto Matte. Great location in Soho.

Superb food, great service.

Awesome food and great staff. Fun and buzzy atmosphere and great location for a night out.

Chotto Mate ticks many boxes – it is cool, serves excellent food and wines and has enthusiastic and engaging staff. The catch, however, is the cost. The menu is somewhat bewildering in its complexity, the dishes are small and the bill can therefore rack up quickly. Even if you opt for one of the sharing menus – and at least have the dilemma of knowing what to choose taken away – this hardly comes cheap, at a minimum of £50 a head. On a Wednesday night when a group of five of us dined there recently, the place was certainly buzzing, suggesting good things, but also many deep pockets. Chotto Mate (which means ‘wait a minute’ in Japanese) is spread over two floors and is certainly not the place to go for an intimate meal; rather, expect a hip set of tunes, graffiti murals on the wall and a lot of people and dishes constantly on the move. The inspiration for the food – in that very on-trend sort of way – is a cross between Japanese and Peruvian. It’s been done many times before, most famously at Nobu, but it does continue to work, and the two cuisines are natural bedfellows in many ways. There is no shortage of options from which to choose and we also noted that the restaurant was very accommodating for one member of our group, who required gluten-free options. Between us we sampled some 20 dishes, a range of cold and hot options. All credit to the restaurant that I do not recall one failure among the selection. Chotto excelled in both the quite simple (such as Padrón peppers) as well as the notably more complex. In particular, we rated the dishes from the Anticuchería barbecue, namely meat/fish chargrilled over hot coals with a marinade of Peruvian spices. Stand-out options were the pork belly, beef heart skewers and octopus, all full of flavour and cooked pitch-perfect. The wine list was also intelligently compiled and we especially rated a fine New Zealand Pinot Noir (Huia), which paired well with the food. My advice – go, but get someone else to pay if you can.

We sat outside on a sunny day in Soho drinking pisco sours and watching the world go by. We were very well looked after by the manager and waitress, they were attentive, friendly and helpful advising us on the menu. We shared - Yellowtail sashimi, cherry tomatoes, jalapeno and coriander with yuzu truffle soy (I am salivating just thinking about this), Prawn spring roll with shitake and ponzu salsa, Corn, green bean, avocado, spring onion fritters, with daikon sauce –I ate most of them. Tuna sashimi tostaditas, and lastly, Chicken Yuzi teriyaki which was very succulent and quite a large portion, and was more than enough for two. Getting to the toilets was a bit of an ordeal, coming in from the sunshine, it was a very dark walk downstairs to the bathrooms, all black walls and low lighting, it took a while for my eyes to adjust and find the button on the wall to open the doors, but that could just be my age! Will definitely re-visit.