50 Willow Street has form when it comes to Japanese restaurants: the Shoreditch address was home to London’s first Nobu Hotel before reopening last year as the Aethos. The new in-house restaurant has big shoes to fill, but Mitsu has headed in an edgier direction to Nobu, seeking to transplant the energy of east Tokyo’s street culture into the streets of Shoreditch.
Wallpaper* dines at Mitsu, London
The mood: east Tokyo comes to east London
‘Japanese urban street food and the social vibrancy of Shoreditch are the main inspirations behind Mitsu,’ says Óscar Engroba, co-founder of Astet, the Madrid-based studio that designed the restaurant. ‘We’ve brought these two universes together to create a contemporary vision of an izakaya that feels as if it has evolved over time: a lived-in, warm space with a strong and vibrant energy.’
From the street, the raw concrete façade of the Aethos has been marked with the restaurant’s name in oversized lettering; once inside, guests arrive through an entrance corridor of LED arches and throbbing beats. ‘What truly influenced specific design elements was the essence of Japanese heritage and the urban character of Tokyo in the 1970s and 80s,’ says Engroba’s Astet co-founder Ala Zreigat. ‘It was a period marked by glowing neon signs and dynamic graphics that shaped the city’s visual landscape.’
Mitsu’s visual landscape is shaped through filtered layers. Light passes through shoji-inspired glass and large backlit panels integrated into the walls, while partition screens between tables create intimacy. The interior’s most dramatic feature is the noren – traditional fabric hangings found at izakaya entrances – reimagined as large pieces suspended above diners and hand-painted with motifs evoking saké.
The food: The full izakaya experience
The menu offers a greatest hits of the modern Japanese repertoire. Kick off with snacks of spicy edamame and shishito peppers before grazing your way through small plates of chicken karaage, pork sandos and soft-shell crab tempura. There’s raw fish too – maki and temaki, nigiri and sashimi – but the centre of the open-kitchen action is the fire and smoke from the robata grill, which delivers everything from Brixham turbot with yuzo miso to unadon: sticky fillets of lacquered grilled eel served atop a bed of omelette.
To drink, a collaboration with Suntory delivers Japanese whisky on draft, served as highballs paired with three bespoke sodas – yuzu, sakura blossom, and apple and pea – alongside a saké list developed with Kanpai brewery in Bermondsey: just the thing to lubricate the vocal cords before hitting up the karaoke room. Prefer to listen to the professionals? There are DJ decks outside on the terrace.
Mitsu is located at 10-50 Willow St, London EC2A 4BH, United Kingdom