Aki London

Aki occupies a Grade II-listed former banking hall on the corner of Cavendish Square, a few steps from Oxford Circus. The £15 million conversion is the work of designer Francis Sultana, who kept the vaulted proportions of the old bank and layered a Japanese sensibility over them: plaster trees climb toward the soaring ceiling, soft cloud motifs drift across the walls, and panels of kimono silk warm the room. Teal velvet booths and low table lamps ring an 80-cover main dining room that manages to feel intimate under all that height. It is the first London restaurant from the Malta group behind Aki Valletta, its Michelin-Guide-listed sister, and the kitchen cooks a contemporary Japanese menu built on in-house fermentation and nose-to-tail sourcing.

The building works across three storeys. Upstairs, a private dining room sits behind hand-painted Japanese landscape frescoes rendered in a European hand, with an adjoining terrace under a retractable glass roof for receptions. Below ground, in the bank's original vault, is Kiyori: a low-lit cocktail bar of gilded ceilings, bronze and mirrored surfaces and 1920s exotica, reached through its own discreet entrance and built around a dancefloor that fills as the evening runs on. A DJ plays through the week, and the main hall's height keeps the music from swallowing conversation. For a private event, the mix is unusual for the postcode: a grand heritage dining room, a fresco-lined salon with a terrace, and a subterranean bar with a floor to dance on.