ROKA Aldwych

London's award winning Japanese restaurant, serving contemporary Japanese robatayaki cuisine in striking yet informal surroundings.

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http://www.rokarestaurant.com

Award Winning Japanese Restaurant | R O K A

Brunch at ROKA Aldwych - SLOAN! Magazine

Brunch has long been the perfect way to spend the weekend and from May, ROKA Aldwych has been hosting an exquisite new Han Setto Weekend Brunch menu.

Staying true to the ROKA concept that all dishes are designed to share, the Aldwych Han Setto Brunch includes a Bellini on arrival, an extensive selection of ten ROKA dishes, a main course and dessert platter and is served with wine pairings for just £55.

Available on both Saturday and Sunday in the West End Theatre District, the Han Setto Weekend Brunch offers guests an exciting alternative to the conventional brunch set up, with at-table service and the chance to enjoy a sharing selection of popular ROKA dishes before making your own menu choices.

The brunch diners were certainly keeping the chefs busy at the Robata grill… We spotted a traditional Hatsuyuki ice shaving machine to make ice flakes for delicious snowflake delights We were next invited to select a second course from the Robata grill which lies at the heart of ROKA cuisine.

All true brunches should end with something sweet, and the final flourish was the ROKA dessert platter – a delightful array of sweet treats and fresh fruit.

Roka Aldwych – Review (with Bookatable)

So after the first-world torment of a Covent Garden December I was relieved to meet Fiona in the dark sexy space that Roka Aldwych inhabits where Bookatable, the restaurant review and booking site, had invited us to review their special early evening menu.

The Bookatable special menu offer (£41-last booking at 6.30p.m.) gives you a glass of ‘bubbles’ on arrive, four set starters, a main course and a dessert.

My black cod marinated in yuzu miso had lost some of its texture and should have been firmer-there was a problem with the timings of our mains and it had probably been sitting under a hot lamp…however the management rectified the situation by comping us another flask of sake.

Fiona loved her dark chocolate & green tea pudding with crunchy jivara and pear ice cream with a matcha sauce pouring out of the hot sponge like a healthy green lava flow.

The Bookatable deal at Roka is excellent value and really makes sense for an early evening dinner.

Bottomless Brunch on a Hangover at Roka, Aldwych; A Review

But unlike most brunches, Roka offer white and red wine to their bottomless selection, even allowing you to mix and match to your dishes throughout.

Part one of the ‘Han Setto’ weekend brunch begins with a selection of ten dishes, a new one presented every 5-10 minutes until you end up with a buffet spread.

1 | Kacbocha To Amaimo No Salada – Japanese Pumpkin And Sweet Potato Salad Ermegah this was actual sweet creamy incredible-ness.

Apart from one meh and one bleh, Roka’s famous Japanese brunch surpassed all of our expectations, or met them; I mean they were abnormally high.

I would whole-heartedly return for just the food, at only £49 including a mimosa, it’s a hard price to beat for 10 unlimited tapas, a main dish each and an extraordinary dessert platter.

Roka Aldwych, Bottomless Brunch Review - Adventures of a London ...

We were put in a quieter corner (a genius move on Roka’s part because bloggers giggling can get LOUD), plyed with prosecco (the sheer joy of the latest bottomless brunch fashion) and generally left to celebrate recent birthdays, engagements, end of study years, recent overseas trips and the fact that it was Sunday.

By this point the bottomless prosecco was kicking in nicely, proved by the blurring of our lenses (both spectacle and camera) so I won’t bore you with step by step analysis of each individual dish, I think I’ll flood you with a slew of mouthwatering images and highlights instead.

That’ll teach you for reading my blog, oh, wait… Japanese chefs are famous for crisp, clean flavours and we began our ‘family style’ brunch feast with bellinis, hot edamame with ginger and soy dressing and otsukemono no moriawase (a selection of vegetable pickles) that hit the spot.

We unequivocally loved the sashimi selection, ordering two of each in quick succession, photographed the Nori off the sushi platter and it was chopsticks at dawn when gyuniku to goma no gyoza (beef, ginger and sesame dumplings) and vegetable & prawn tempura disappeared almost instantly.

In anti-clockwise order, Aftab ordered kushi yaki moriawase (a sticky grilled skewer selection), Ellie took steps towards Vegan-ism with the yaki yasai moriawase (a selection of vegetables from the robata) and Angie surprised us by ordering the tai no miso-yaki (sea bream fillet).

ROKA aldwych

Grace Dent reviews Roka Aldwych | London Evening Standard

A fourth branch of Roka — the Japanese robatayaki restaurant — has sprung up on Aldwych.

Instead one will find intensely good, wickedly expensive plates of robata meats and fish, maki, sashimi and notably brilliant cocktails.

This was nothing a good strong Fig Manhattan — one of my favourite cocktails and on offer here as a signature drink — wouldn’t take the edge off.

Perhaps I should stop naming prices, because the ease with which two Roka diners can whizz through £150 of small plates is quite exhilarating.

Roka Aldwych 71 Aldwych, WC2 (020 7294 7636; rokarestaurant.com/aldwych) 1 beef dumplings £7.30 1 broccoli £4.90 1 California maki £7.90 1 crispy prawn maki £7.90 1 rock shrimp tempura £14.30 1 spicy edamame £4.60 2 chicken yakitori £9.80 1 lamb cutlets £23.30 1 rice £2.60 1 salmon teriyaki £12.60 1 raspberry usugiri £7.90 1 Beachbum Shochu £10.60 2 Diet Coke  £5.80 1 Fig Manhattan £10.60 2 still Lurisia mineral water £7.80 2 Twinkles £23.20 Service £22.75 TOTAL   £183.85 Browse Grace Dent's latest restaurant reviews Browse Grace Dent's latest restaurant reviews 1/10 El Pastór 2/10 Radio Alice 3/10 Lingholm Kitchen 4/10 Luca 5/10 Anzu 6/10 Temper Paul Winch-Furness 7/10 Smokestak Daniel Hambury/Stella Pictures 8/10 Noble Rot 9/10 Laughing Heart Evening Standard / eyevine 10/10 Park Chinois

ROKA Brunch Review: What We Thought

Award-winning contemporary Japanese restaurant, ROKA, has just launched a weekend han setto brunch: ten starters to share, a main dish from the robata or main kitchen, sharing dessert platter plus bellini on arrival, although with no eggs in sight it’s really more of a weekend lunch.

The mains are ordered individually and give a classic taste of the ROKA experience; glazed baby back ribs, sea bream fillet, beef sirloin and miso black cod are some of the options, whilst a huge dessert platter is brought to the table at the end of the meal.

Sitting through the back in the main restaurant there is no natural light but spotlights above the tables provide the perfect conditions for a quick photo – when the food looks as good as it does here you’ll be pleased you can document your experience/make your friends jealous (delete as applicable).

Pickled vegetables and beautifully fresh tuna, salmon and sea bass sashimi on a bed of ice acted as palate cleansers (although the sashimi was stunning in its own right), leading on to gobo and daikon salad, robata vegetables with yuzu miso dressing and spicy mixed sashimi.

Two hours of brunching later and my answer remains the same: ROKA is my favourite restaurant in London.

Roka Aldwych | Restaurants in Holborn, London

This branch is one of four Rokas now in London, and then there's the excellent Zuma, too - the group's flagship restaurant now daddy to a host of similarly swanky outposts all over the globe.

This branch continues the Roka focus on contemporary Japanese cooking, with the authentic robata grill once again playing a central role.

Signature dishes here include pure Japanese wagyu beef tartare with smoked soya sauce, wasabi and nori crackers, and skewers of langoustine and cod cheek with shiso and ume boshi.

The drinks list majors on wines from the old world and new, as well as a pretty serious sake selection - there are ten available by the glass or carafe, as well as a fair few rare finds by the bottle.

Signature cocktails (think the Roka negroni, made with rose petal gin, Aperol, plum sake and peach bitters) do brisk business, alongside an extensive list of shochu - all housed in custom-made display walls.