Aragawa

Aragawa brought its first restaurant outside Japan to a quiet stretch of Clarges Street in October 2023, the London chapter of the storied Tokyo steakhouse built around Tajima wagyu. The whole restaurant turns on a single idea carried over from Japan: the finest cuts, seasoned only with salt and pepper and cooked over imported binchotan white charcoal made from ubame oak. Kazuo Imayoshi, who spent four decades at the Tokyo original, moved to London to run the grill alongside head chef Fumiya Kase.

The main dining room sits downstairs, its red-lacquered walls, coffered ceiling and paper lanterns lending the space a deliberate hush; a small bar counter and a scatter of round and banquette tables keep numbers low. On the ground floor a private dining room is lined with timber lattice screens around one long table, reached through an arrival area that looks onto the wine cellar and down into the room below.

For a private occasion the whole restaurant can be taken, seating up to thirty-five, with a Champagne and canape reception held on the ground floor before guests move down to dine. Menus are built to the table rather than fixed, and the sommelier works from a cellar visible on arrival. This is a room for a considered dinner rather than a late night, closing early and pitched at guests who come for the beef.