Sumosan

I visited Sumosan with a client last week and was really pleasantly suprised. Whilst I really love the sushi at Nobu it is just that bit to ‘namey’ and this place provides a great alternative. The dining room is well spaced and airy, the tables for 2 perhaps a bit close if you dont want your neighbours to overhear, but that can be said of most places. The service was ok, unremarkable, which in my book is a good thing – if i dont remember it there probably wasn't much wrong with it. We ate Seaweed Salad, California Rolls, Tempura, the Salmon Sashimi salad and a few other standard bit and bobs, all very nice. It's pretty pricy though, around £65 per head for those bits and half a bottle of wine – I'd sooner go somewhere cheaper if dining out with friends, and probably get a similar standard of food, so I suppose what your paying for is the Mayfair location, dining room and the lovely presentation of the dishes. I Imagine that its good fun for dinner. The atmosphere was dying a bit by 2pm – so not great for a long boozy one, but then if you're at a Japanese you're probably not in for one of those anyway.

Lively venue tables a little close but good atmosphere. ordered the tasting menu and some drinks. the cocktaisl to start was ok but the selection was very sweet orientated! the sommelier was excellent and picked an excellent Spanish white for us. then the tasting menu started to arrive first edanamme beans which where as expected the a lobster salad which was excellent in every way! that was it the food then took a huge dive and we felt like we where just numbers in a fast food chain! I can not explain how badly mundane the Duck was and the vegetables that limped on the the plate. the king crab was so covered in a rich sauce that you could not taste the king crab, it was like having a ketchup sandwich!!! all processed flavour. what a disappointment

This place sucks. My husband and I wanted to substitute the eel and bluefin tuna options in one of the sushi sets for salmon. We wanted to do this because both eel and bluefin are endangered species. The waiter refused to let us do this. When we complained to the manager, he was nonchalant. We asked him why the restaurant was selling bluefin tuna in the first place (this is something we only found out after asking what sort of tuna it was – it is not actually stated on the menu), and he said he viewed our concerns about endangered species as a matter of opinion (well, the scientific facts about whether or not bluefin is endangered are not a matter of opinion). He said that as long as it was legal to sell it, (and this, of course, is factually correct) he did not see that his restaurant was doing anything wrong. It is true that not that many people are particularly bothered about where their fish comes from, and they get fed up with other people preaching to them about it. But for those people who do care, there should at least be a customer-focused response from businesses. Sumosan's refusal to meet our request to substitute the endangered species on its menu for a non-endangered species, salmon, and for which we would have paid exactly the same price (even though salmon is far cheaper than either eel or bluefin) illustrated how they couldn't care less, not only about the ethical aspects of their operation, but also about customer concern regarding these issues. One of the waiters told us that if we cared about these issues we shouldn't eat at Sumosan. Well, knowing now that they trade in endangered species, we certainly won't eat there again. But on that occasion, knowing that we had raised an issue that they clearly had no scruples about, we decided to ride out the meal, choosing an alternative a la carte menu, and challenging the nonchalant service by refusing to leave the “optional” service charge that is automatically added to the bill. The food was competently done, the atmosphere was slick and sterile – clearly geared towards the Mayfair hedge fund set – but the experience as a whole was thoroughly unpleasant.

In trying to complete the circumnavigation of London’s finest Japanese eateries the annual recognition of Mrs J’s birthday presented another opportunity to go boldly where no doubt many, but not the two of us, had gone before. Some positive feedback on the research front led me to book Sumosan, great location, quirky website. With the portent well heeded regarding some of the price levels, we stepped off a rain drenched Albemarle Street into the cosy, bustling atmos of the restaurant and headed straight down to the ‘jbar’ (“a valuable addition to the Mayfair bar scene” according to the quirky website). That it may be but on a Thursday night before 9pm we had the place exclusively to ourselves. No matter, an interesting and tempting cocktail list, followed through with some slick execution. Upstairs they were certainly packing them in and once our neighbour had given up using my chair as a footstool we took to the table. Statutory order of edamame, this time with added cracked black pepper an chilli, seemed to absent in the former and abundant in the latter but was a bit tricky as the chilli came in sauce like guise rather than a dry style which I had imagined. The menu is pretty standard fare for any given modern Japanese with the exception of a couple of the dishes involving foie gras or truffle oil. Commencing with a staple of Tuna Tataki and Rock Shrimp Tempura, the tataki was flavoursome but too thinly cut for my liking, the RST was spot on. We then had a roller coaster ride through the Sushi / Sashimi menu which had highs of Fried Hamachi roll, fried toro ponzu nigiri – an exquisite mouthful, and firm and fleshy Tai (Sea bream) sashimi and lows which included a very pedestrian and cumbersome soft shell crab sushi roll. To the side some vegetable tempura, all priced and selected per piece; good if you like an asparagus spear not so good if you are a carrot person. The tempura itself passed muster with a good light batter enveloping the veg . Rounding off the savoury section was our lone choice of a main course, not really wanted but curiosity got the better of me and I really wished it hadn’t; Turbot on a bed of Cauliflower & Broccoli risotto. Sounds inviting and promising, like the prospect of a strip of raffle tickets at the school fair, where a small outlay good reap a big reward, but sadly this dish shouldn’t even make the tombola or the lucky dip as it seemed the fish was completely out of sorts with the rather mushy and quite cold risotto. We couldn’t complete the dish, part struggle with the dish, part sufficiency in the quantum already consumed. Overall the food is pretty good here even if some of the invention doesn’t work, the service was a mixed bag; the waitress seemed completely disinterested in her job (or us; we elected for (a) been in the job too long and doesn’t care or (b) hasn’t been in the job long enough and hasn’t got a clue) but the more senior floor staff did a very attentive job. I can’t see us sporting galoshes to head out on another rain swept London night to go back to Sumosan, mainly because it seemed so average and at around £100 each with no wine and a staggering 15% service charge – presumably some IT cost built in, felt even for Mayfair to be a touch lumpy, and so the journey continues…

Sumosan is very good for sushi and other “pan-asisan” dishes. The truffled sushi rolls are extremely good.
Service is nice but the quality and location come at a price.

I like Sumosan very much – it gives me good Japanese cuisine time after time without the need for booking weeks and weeks in advance. Many friends of mine insist it's a poor alternative for Nobu or Zuma but I personally believe the five years it's been open is a testament to its popularity given the stiff competition. It may not have the A-list glamour of some of its competitors but I go there to eat good food and not to make a fashion statement. Service can very occasionally be a little slow at peak times but unless you want to rush through your meal not slow enough to be a problem. The black cod on my most recent visit was delicious along with the yakinku grill. In honesty I couldn't remark about the wine list as I usually stick to the Asahi black label. Food is well presented and fresh and Sumosan has never disappointed me – I suggest giving it a try.

Hmmm, I certainly wouldnt describe Sumosan as chic, it as the ubiquitous IKEA styling of block furniture and browns and creams. The sashimi and sushi was fresh and tasty but the platters were horribly over-priced, for the amount on each platter, in any decent Japanese restaurant Ive paid about 20-25 quid whereas here they were 30-35. What I was impressed by was the fresh fruit platter, exceptionally generous with a beautifully presented plethora of fruit, never seen anything like it in a London restaurant. Lovely cocktails but these too were over-priced for what they were. Shame really because from a value for money standpoint, I wouldnt go back.

The best sushi rolls in London.