Yashin Ocean House

Yashin Ocean House occupies a white-washed Edwardian building on Old Brompton Road, a few minutes from the Royal Albert Hall. The room is built around a long turquoise-glass counter where the chefs work in full view, set against chequerboard tiling, patches of exposed brick and a lacquered black horse that doubles as a lamp; a glass cabinet of ageing fish runs along one wall. It is the second restaurant from Yasuhiro Mineno and Shinya Ikeda, who opened the original Yashin in Kensington in 2010.

The kitchen practises head-to-tail cooking, using the whole fish across raw carpaccios, hot and cold Japanese tapas and chargrilled dishes, alongside cuts such as Hida wagyu and a deep sake list. Sushi arrives under the house line, “without soy sauce, but if you want to”: each piece is finished by the chef with the seasoning it needs, and the omakase, in four, eight or eleven pieces, is best taken at the counter.

Two private dining rooms sit on the lower ground floor, the larger seating around twelve and the smaller suited to an intimate handful, and the restaurant can be taken in full for a reception by arrangement. The counter and open kitchen make it a natural setting for a chef-led dinner, and a small pavement terrace opens in warm weather.