UCHI

Japanese food, delivered to the homes of Hackney. 144 Clarence Road, Lower Clapton E5 8DY.

Uchi

http://uchihackney.com

Uchi, review, Clapton: ' It truly felt like a neighbourhood restaurant ...

Clarence Road and the adjacent Narrow Way, the nexus of the Hackney riots in 2011, have of late become home to several Japanese restaurants.

Although Uchi started as a sushi delivery service, dropping off responsibly-sourced sushi around Hackney by bike, you would not know it from the restaurant.

Uchi is active on Instagram and Twitter but its printed menu is scant and its website bare, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.

Although they serve skewers, nigiri and rolls, Uchi is not a yakitori or sushi restaurant, but a self-described home-style café, offering a range of small dishes designed to be shared over several hours and many pints of cold Asahi, or high quality sake.

Uchi truly felt like a neighbourhood restaurant – minimal marketing, little to no press, no fanfare: it’s just quietly getting on with things, while locals start to filter in.

Mina Miller Archives - East End Review

Uchi | Restaurants in Lower Clapton, London

On a residential Hackney street, someone’s Pinterest board has come to life.

At least, that’s how this Japanese restaurant feels: from the brushed gold countertops, untreated wooden stools and pretty glass vases with delicate foliage, to the square cards that make up the specials board which, naturally, are held together by mismatched bulldog clips.

A ‘seaweed and carrot salad’ might sound like food for an amphibious bunny, but it was deep, earthy and full of umami satisfaction.

Technically a ‘special’, it would be a real shame if this dish doesn’t become a permanent fixture.

The food arrived in an onslaught and the table soon resembled a Tudor banquet, meaning that the meant-to-be-hot-and-cold food was quickly all the same as the water on Mariah Carey’s rider – room temperature.