Richard's review of Umu

I really don't mind spending good money on top restaurants. I don't even mind the meal taking hours, but here the bill was stratospherically high and the pace at which the food arrived was more dead slug than live snail.

When it did arrive, the food was gorgeous; the Kaseiki menu offers lots of small, beautifully prepared, beautifully presentated and subtle tasting morsels. The trouble is, you need a hamburger between each course to stave off the hunger pangs, and could easily have time to go and get one from the nearest Burger King, which is, I am reliably informed, in Barnes. Matching with wine too was a mistake – it seemed like such a good idea at the time; lots of different wines and sake to go with the different flavours to which they are perfectly suited. The trouble is, the wine for the next course came immediately after the previous course had been cleared away, so you either sat there thirsty as well as hungry, or drank it in the interminable wait and then had nothing to complement the food.

Yes, we could have come on an off night, but at these prices you cannot afford to have an off few minutes, let alone a whole night.

Unlike some places where the whole experience puts you off, the food was just so good (and the Calpis Martini so unlike it sounds as though it should be), I would go back. this time, I'd sit at the sushi counter though and order as I went along. That way I could make a swift exit if the food was not so swift in arriving.