Japan meets Denmark meets Chelsea at the Sticks’n’Sushi on Kings Road

The new Sticks’n’Sushi Kings Road looks new, shiny and modern, warm and welcoming on a cold autumn’s evening.

Tall windows on the ground floor span the width of the room and offer an opportunity for people watching – a pretty good treat as it’s the King’s Road and the passersby are definitely worth the gossip.

The restaurant’s interior is unmistakably Scandinavian-Japanese fusion – designed by Copenhagen architects NORM. It plays on themes of light and dark, wood and leather and simple, clean shapes.

Conceived by half-Danish, half-Japanese brothers Jens and Kim Rahbek and their brother-in-law Thor Andersen, Sticks’n’Sushi has moved up from the Copenhagen basement where it was founded in 1994 to 21 locations across Europe.

The restaurant on King’s Road is the sixth in London, and eighth in the UK.

Sticks’n’Sushi’s recipe for success is a unique combination of freshly-made sushi and grilled yakitori, a mix that caused concern in the Japanese part of the family when proposed by brother Kim as serving two dishes was inconceivable in Japan.

But Kim thought that in 1994, Danes were not yet ready to eat just sushi and it was decided to add yakitori – small grilled sticks – to the menu, hence the name, Sticks’n’Sushi.

Sticks’n’Sushi Kings Road accommodates 220 people over its three floors and has an open kitchen island as the centrepiece on the ground floor.

The basement features The Kings Room, a 26-seat private dining room, equipped with its own kitchen, cocktail bar and staff.

Guests dining in the room are able to choose bespoke menus, prepared for them by their own chefs, and if they wish, have the concertina doors to the kitchen open to watch the chefs at work.

The menu at the main restaurant is called a photo album and features an image of every dish. You can order dishes a la carte as individual pieces or as composed menus.

My guest and I decide to sample a bit of everything from the a la carte menu – Hotate or Scallop Ceviche (£10.80) and Beef Tataki (£10.20) are divine, Tuna Tartare is good (£9.80), Cauliflower and Seaweed salad (£6) tastes very healthy (£4.50).

As my friend is on a low carb diet that I’m also trying to follow (and more often than not fail miserably at), we go easy on carbs and go for Green Fish Salad – tuna tataki, salmon, shima suzuki, cress & mitzuna, topped with lotus chips, chunky wafu, aged danish cheese & miso mustard (£18) and Osaka Chaos – salmon, tuna, shrimp, tamago, avocado, shiitake, snow peas, trout roe, cress & sushi rice (£18).

It’s delicious, but I’m still a bit hungry and remember to try some yakitori – Koushi hābu (Veal & miso herb butter for £5) and Ika tori (Chicken and squid sausage & miso aioli, £3.80).

My low carb diet goes out through the window as I succumb to the temptation of the Three for £10 dessert – coconut rice with passion fruit coulis, White chocolate with sweet miso & puffed rice and Matcha fondant: marzipan, matcha & dark chocolate.

Sticks’n’Sushi Kings Road is located at 13-115 King’s Road, London, SW3 4NT. Click here for further details.

By Vilma Darling

The Bon Vivant Journal

If you enjoyed this review of Sticks’n’Sushi Kings Road, read some of our other latest reviews including Cora Pearl in Covent Garden or The Ninth in Fitzrovia.

You may also enjoy our guide to the best Japanese restaurants in London.

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