Aki: new Japanese restaurant in London’s Cavendish Square

There are certain London addresses that seem to have been waiting for their next life. Cavendish Square is one of them. Set back from the urgency of Oxford Circus, its garden and Georgian facades hold a different rhythm: one shaped by proportion, pause and the quiet confidence of a place that has watched the city change around it.

At No. 1, behind the stone frontage of a Grade II-listed former bank, Aki has begun a new chapter. A new Japanese restaurant in London, yes, but not a restaurant interested in novelty for its own sake. This is a place shaped by Japanese craft, Maltese beginnings and a building whose history asks for more than a quick reinvention.

Aki brings together sushi, sashimi, shared omakase platters, binchotan-fired robata and Japanese wagyu, with wine, sake and cocktails considered as part of the meal rather than an afterthought. Downstairs, in the building’s original vault, Kiyori changes the rhythm again: Japanese-inspired cocktails, rare spirits and a room built for the part of the evening that does not need to end with dinner.

From Valletta to a new chapter in London

Aki may be new to London, but it did not begin here. The first Aki opened in Valletta, Malta, in 2020, where a modern expression of Japanese dining found an audience drawn to ingredient-led cooking, close attention to craft and hospitality that never mistook seriousness for stiffness.

Over four consecutive years, Aki Valletta earned a place in the Michelin Guide. More importantly, it developed a way of working: respect the source, understand the setting, and let the restaurant belong to the place in which it stands. Malta remains part of the story, not as a theme imposed upon the menu, but as a sensitivity to season, provenance and the particular character of an island.

London is a different chapter. The core philosophy has travelled, but the expression is new: a historic building, a deeper drinks programme and a pace that can hold a focused business lunch, a long dinner or an evening that continues below ground at Kiyori.

A Japanese restaurant in a former bank

Cavendish Square was conceived in the eighteenth century as part of a Georgian vision of order and harmony. Aki’s building carries that history in its bones. It has lived through many versions of London, including its long life as Sir Samuel Scott’s banking house, and now holds a restaurant shaped by a different kind of exchange: between a historic London setting and Japanese craftsmanship.

The restoration, led by designer Francis Sultana, did not treat the building as scenery. It began with a degree of reverence for what was already here: the original eighteenth-century panelling, the grand stone staircase, the scale of the former banking hall and the weight of the original vault doors below.

Look up and there are delicate plaster trees and cloud motifs drifting across the soaring ceilings, a quiet nod to Japanese decorative screens. Look more closely and Japanese references continue in less expected places, including bespoke furnishings with the rich texture of kimono fabrics integrated into their design. These details do not compete with the building’s Georgian character. They give it another language.

The result is not a Japanese room placed inside a London building. It is a dining room where Thomas Archer’s early Georgian vision, the restrained gravitas of a former banking house and contemporary Japanese craft are allowed to hold their own conversation.

Sushi, robata and Japanese craft

Aki’s cooking begins with Japanese technique, but it is not limited to one expression of it. The menu moves between the precision of sashimi and nigiri, the heat of binchotan-fired robata, composed small dishes and Japanese wagyu. The thread is attention to the ingredient, rather than an insistence on ceremony.

At the sushi counter, sashimi is cut to order and served with fresh root wasabi and 30-year-old sashimi soya. Edo-style nigiri is brushed with aged akasu and the same house soya. Bluefin tuna appears across its spectrum, from lean akami to richer chu toro and otoro, alongside Scottish salmon, seabream, hamachi, sea bass and saba.

Elsewhere, the robata gives the menu a different kind of energy. Fish, meat and vegetables meet binchotan charcoal, bringing smoke, caramelisation and depth without losing the clarity of the ingredient. Japanese wagyu, including Miyazaki beef on the current menu, brings another register entirely.

“The wine selection is exceptional, and the sommelier was both entertaining and perfectly attuned to what paired best with our delicious food.”

Agnieszka Kita, Google review, April 2026

The chef’s selection, built to share

Omakase is usually understood as a progression: one piece, one course or one decision placed in front of the guest at a time. Aki takes a more social approach. The chef’s selection arrives as a sashimi or nigiri platter, composed from the day’s fish and designed for the table.

The format keeps the discipline of the chef’s choice while allowing dinner to find its own pace. You can begin with a six-piece nigiri platter at lunch, gather around a larger sashimi selection in the evening, then add robata, wagyu or a bottle from the cellar as the table develops.

Seasons, craft and care

The kitchen’s attention begins before service. Aki grows Japanese herbs, leaves and blossoms in modular farms within the restaurant, while other ingredients are selected according to season and preserved in-house where the kitchen can add time as well as flavour.

Pickles made with nukadoko, the fermented rice bran central to Japanese preservation, bring one expression of that work to the plate. Fresh herbs, sea vegetables, dashi, koji, miso and careful fermentation all play their part. They are not decoration. They are the quiet structures that give the food depth.

The same discipline runs through the details of service: rice held at the right temperature, a clean cut of fish, wasabi used for aroma rather than heat, and a brush of soya intended to complete the piece rather than cover it. The work is often small. Its effect is cumulative.

A cellar and bar built for the food

The drinks programme follows the same principle as the kitchen: range matters, but so does intention. Aki serves sake, Japanese spirits, Champagne and wine by the glass and by the bottle, with a cellar built to sit naturally alongside sushi, sashimi, robata and wagyu.

For guests who want to go further into the wine list, Aki’s wine and sake programme runs every day, while Aki Uncorked opens one rarer cellar bottle by the glass on Thursday evenings. Cocktails draw on yuzu, miso, rare teas, awamori and house-infused shochu, with non-alcoholic compositions given the same attention.

Kiyori, beneath the dining room

Kiyori is not an afterthought to the restaurant. It is the second half of the building. Set in the original bank vault, it takes the energy of the dining room and lowers the lights, with Japanese whisky, sake, awamori and cocktails that draw on the same ingredients and instincts found upstairs.

Some evenings begin there. Others arrive after sashimi, robata and dessert, when the conversation has earned another hour. Either way, it gives Aki a different rhythm from the usual dinner-only Japanese restaurant in London.

A new Japanese restaurant with a point of view

Newness is only useful when it brings something worth discovering. At Aki, that means a Japanese restaurant in London where the cooking is serious but the room is never solemn; where a historic building becomes part of the evening without becoming its whole subject; and where lunch, dinner, wine, sake and cocktails are allowed to belong to the same day.

It is a restaurant shaped by Japanese craft, Maltese beginnings and a very particular London address. The final element, as ever, is the table: who gathers around it, what arrives from the kitchen, what is poured beside it, and how long the evening is allowed to last.

Aki is a modern Japanese restaurant at 1 Cavendish Square, Marylebone, London W1G 0LA, a short walk from Oxford Circus and Bond Street. Set inside a Grade II-listed former bank, Aki serves sushi, sashimi, shared omakase platters, binchotan-fired robata and Japanese wagyu, alongside a wine and sake programme. Downstairs, Kiyori occupies the building’s original bank vault, serving Japanese-inspired cocktails and rare spirits. Reserve a table at Aki London.