Nakimushi Opens in Notting Hill with Japanese Menu and Warm Pine-Lined Design

Key facts

• Nakimushi is located at 7 Kensington Mall, London W8 4EB, United Kingdom.
• Chris D’Sylva has been opening food businesses in Notting Hill since 2019, including Smart Grocers, Fish + Meat Shop, Supermarket of Dreams, Dorian Bistro, and Eel Sushi.
• The £2m townhouse conversion was entrusted to chefs Robin Kosuge and Yuji Shimokawa Kelly, who previously ran Robin’s Ramen and Urchin residencies.
• Jack Architecture & Design, founded in 2020 by Jonathan Richardson, designed the interior, combining Japanese sensibility with British heritage details.
• The design features an oxblood shopfront, noren curtain, hand-glazed Kit Kat tiles, leather banquettes, brushed pine, parquet flooring, and brass accents.
• The ground floor has an open kitchen with a built-to-order robata grill and a men bako made by a friend of Kosuge’s.
• Upstairs is a 25-seat dining room and tiled bar; a glass-walled cold room ages whole ducks and Ibérico Duroc pork.
• Menu highlights include chashu pork belly bowl, Basque chicken broth with Komugi Noodles from Manchester, corn tempura with fig-leaf salt, quail tempura with apricot purée and jerk-spiked tendashi, and a tako taco with buckwheat shell.