Ichibuns — London, UK

By
last updated
in Features
The restaurant in London’s Soho quarter confounds on several fronts
(Image credit: press)

Entering Ichibuns – a pun on the Japanese term for ‘number one’ – is a little like stumbling into a hallucinogenic Japanese version of Alice in Wonderland. 

The brainchild of Robin Leigh (New York’s Bondst and Nobu Tribeca), the restaurant in London’s Soho quarter confounds on several fronts. The first is its eye-popping interiors, which Tokyo-based Studio Glitt has conceived on paper as a genuinely Japanese mash-up of American diner, and the 50s and 60s by way of Tokyo’s genre-bending subcultures. Fully realised, this translates into three floors of theatrical drama – practically every surface, including the ceilings, is festooned with an energetic magpie collection of memorabilia, manga comics, cushion covers made of kimonos, period film posters, old coal stoves repurposed as washroom sinks, and a montage of origami paper magnified as wall panels. 

As it turns out, the theatricality is almost a diversion, because in the kitchen, executive chef Brendan Fong executes an equally eclectic spread that takes in burgers of Australian wagyu and British grass-fed beef – paired with sautéed shitake mushrooms, white truffle oil and blue cheese fondue, or encrusted with panko flakes – alongside steaming bowls of ramen with king crab, snow crab maki, and milkshakes spiked with sesame ice-cream, maple syrup and peanut butter.

The first is its eye-popping interiors, which Tokyo-based Studio Glitt has conceived on paper as a genuinely Japanese mash-up of American diner

(Image credit: press)

Tokyo-based Studio Glitt has conceived on paper as a genuinely Japanese mash-up of American diner

(Image credit: press)

ully realised, this translates into three floors of theatrical drama

(Image credit: press)

practically every surface, including the ceilings, is festooned with an energetic magpie collection of memorabilia, manga comics

(Image credit: press)

INFORMATION
Website

ADDRESS

22 Wardour Street

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Daven Wu

Daven Wu is the Singapore Editor at Wallpaper*. A former corporate lawyer, he has been covering Singapore and the neighbouring South-East Asian region since 1999, writing extensively about architecture, design, and travel for both the magazine and website. He is also the City Editor for the Phaidon Wallpaper* City Guide to Singapore.