Donabe Restaurant

Those who remember Hannah - the wonderful kaiseki restaurant that lived here previously - will find Donabe looking much the same. The timber-laden dining room has a charming lived-in feel, its herringbone floors and tables carrying the scuffs of happy diners past. Paper lanterns glow overhead, pulling you into the space, while wooden crates by each table double as storage for bags. Shelves stacked with trinkets add to the cosy, homely vibe.

The menu revolves around donabe - the traditional Japanese claypot rice dish - but the warm-up acts are worth your attention. A tofu salad comes piled high with katsuobushi, while a slice of miso-marinated black cod is rich and flaky. Best of all is a glossy eel sushi roll, painted in sticky eel glaze. It’s outrageously good, even at £19. Pricey? Sure. Worth it? Absolutely.

Donabes arrive in generous portions. One is plenty to share with sides of sushi or tempura, or you can go all-in with two between two. The eel donabe is a must-order: rich, fatty eel and soft egg mixing into steamed rice, with the claypot lending that satisfying chew and a crusty base. The crab version, by contrast, lands dense and a little starchy.

Desserts keep things simple: a scoop of tonka bean ice cream is the perfect reset after all that rice, though a strawberry mochi or light Swiss roll will also do the trick. Staff are charming and attentive, and Donabe’s tightly curated sake list goes a long way to making a meal here feel special.

Generous, warming and thoughtful: Donabe is a worthy successor to Hannah’s brilliant, showing off traditional Japanese cookery with quiet elegance.

Donabe Restaurant is a traditional Japanese eatery in Waterloo which serves authentic Japanese clay pot rice dishes, run by celebrated Japanese chef Daisuke Shimoyama.

The restaurant's philosophy is based around rice - a basic ingredient that is hugely important to Japanese cuisine. Donabe serves seasonal claypot rice dishes throughout the year, all focused around this unique style of cooking.

Tokyo-born Shimoyama previously ran Hannah Restaurant in this very site - a highly regarded kaiseki restaurant that now exists as Kokin at The Stratford in East London. After building a career in Japan - including at world-famous three Michelin-starred RyuGin in Tokyo - he moved to London to work at Michelin-starred Umu, becoming head chef of the highly regarded restaurant before opening debut restaurant Hannah.

Although fine dining has long been his career path, Shimoyama also has a fondness for more humble Japanese comfort food, and Donabe strikes at the heart of that with a menu of seasonal, comforting rice dishes.

Dishes at the time of writing include vegetable, prawn and eel tempura, a variety of sushi rolls, and miso marinated salmon and black cod from the grill. The Donabe menu also includes one of Shimoyama’s signature dishes - grilled, smoked tuna collar.

The heart of the menu lies in the donburi and donabe sections. The former features a variety of toppings layered over steamed rice, including vegetables, prawn tempura, smoked trout and salmon roe, and chirashi-don (rice with sashimi). If you’re going for the signature claypot rice, you have an equal amount of choice, but also options like eel rice, chicken with mushrooms, and an A5 Wagyu sukiyaki claypot.

Desserts keep things light with options like tonka bean ice cream, mochi, swiss roll and matcha cake.