Akira Back London

Akira Back London is the main restaurant of Mandarin Oriental Mayfair on Hanover Square, and the first UK venture of the Korean-born, Aspen-raised chef Akira Back. The cooking joins Japanese and Korean traditions: bento boxes at lunch, sharing plates and sushi at night, and signatures such as the AB Tuna Pizza and a Dynamite Lobster made for London. The room serves breakfast, lunch and dinner every day.

Guests arrive down a spiral staircase of green Ming marble into a triple-height atrium under a glass sky roof. The Tokyo studio Curiosity designed the space around the elements of earth, wind and water, with a sculptural timber vortex rising along one wall, a sushi counter set beneath the stair, and artwork by the chef's mother, Young Hee Back, on the walls and the plates. The dining room holds almost 150 covers.

Three private dining rooms open off the restaurant. Sui seats 20 and Ka seats 16, and the two combine for 34 at dinner or 50 for a reception. Chi, the smallest, seats seven. The atrium itself takes a private dinner of 80 or a reception of 150.