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Name: Chotto Matte Brunch Menu
Where: 11–13 Frith Street, Soho, London, W1D 4RB, http://www.chotto-matte.com
Cost: £50 per person for brunch with alcoholic drinks, or £45 per person with non-alcoholic drinks, available on Saturdays and Sundays only, between 12 and 4pm.
About: This was a revisit to Chotto Matte, a Peruvian Nikkei restaurant set on Soho's busy Frith Street, you can read my first Chotto Matte review here.
Born from the Japanese diaspora living in Peru, Peruvian-Nikkei cooking is much more than just a trendy fad – it was born out of necessity in the early 20th century as most Japanese immigrants lacked the necessary ingredients to cook their home fare. Instead, they resorted to using the fantastic produce of Peru, from Pacific fish and seafood to the high altitude vegetables of the Andes, and the fruit of the Amazon. Today, Peruvian-Nikkei cuisine is very much part of the mainstream diet in Peru, with dishes like Tiradito and Maki Acevichado being just as popular as ceviche or causa.
I wrote about this style of food in my cookbook “Nikkei Cuisine: Japanese Food the South American Way” available on Amazon here. You will also find one of Chotto Matte’s recipes in the book as they kindly contributed towards it.
Set over 3 floors with an outdoor seating area great for people watching, Chotto Matte has an uninterrupted funky soundtrack that certainly makes for a party atmosphere. The décor is bright and colourful with plenty of natural wood, stone and glass. On the ground floor, there is a vast, UV-illuminated mural created by Tokyo-based graffiti artist Houxo Que. Chotto Matte is undeniably a beautiful restaurant.
What We Ate: There are two choices of brunch menus - one featuring fish and meat, and another for vegetarians. We tried one of each.
We kicked off with a ceviche of seabass sashimi, served with sweet potato, crunchy Peruvian corn, coriander, chive oil and a zingy leche de tigre (tigers milk – the dressing used to ‘cook’ fish in ceviches and tiraditos).
The vegetarian opener was Chotto Matte’s famous paper-thin vegetables – a crunchy and refreshing medley of daikon, carrot, beetroot, quinoa, physalis, lime and chia seeds.
The fish sushi had a selection of fish, each topped with its unique seasoning. Tuna, scallop, and yellowtail were delicious, and I particularly enjoyed the salmon with dots of aji amarillo, and seabass with truffle cream.
The vegetarian sushi selection was equally good and very creative – this included tamago omelette, nasu (aubergine), avocado, shitake mushroom, courgette and yasai (vegetable) truffle roll.
The tempura course was Nikkei Sepia - calamari with an aji amarillo and yuzu emulsion (a Japanese citrus) with sugar and mayonnaise. I loved this but wished the portion was a tad more generous.
The vegetarian tempura featured tender stem broccoli and shiitake mushroom, with a delicious scattering of tempura diced chilli. Though the batter was light and crunchy, the broccoli was slightly overcooked.
From the robata grill, Asado de Tira was in our opinion the best of all dishes on the menu - a wonderfully tender beef short rib with asparagus, purple potato puree and teriyaki jus.
The Pollo Den Miso (chicken with a miso-based sauce) was also excellent – this had deliciously smoky charred chicken, carrot, daikon and yellow chilli salsa.
The vegetarian robata grill equivalent was Calabacin al la Parilla – this was a platter of chilli courgette, pickled shallots and crisp-fried sweet potato. We enjoyed this although we felt this was a little uninspiring and more like a side dish than a main course in its own right.
The Nasu Miso was cubes of aubergine marinated in Japanese miso, with apricot, puffed soba, and sesame seeds.
Both robata grilled options came with sake-sautéed broccoli with Huacatay sauce. I enjoyed this particularly for the sauce, a deliciously zingy one made with the Peruvian huacatay, a mint-tarragon type of herb which is the base of this sauce together with the fruity aji amarillo (Peruvian yellow chilli).
For dessert, both menus had an intensely rich, creamy and bitter chocolate pot, frozen mochi balls of mango, and of yuzu, with a passion fruit brûlée topped with pomegranate seeds. The desserts were very well conceived - rich and intensely flavoured. The menu offers a choice of tea or coffee.
If you visit the restaurant, not everyone in the table needs to order the same menu. For example a couple can order one menu each containing the vegetarian and non-vegetarian options. Even tough I felt that the non-vegetarian menu was the strongest menu, this way you would get the best of the variety that the restaurant can offer.
What We Drank: There is a selection of alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails on the brunch menu, and we opted for the Bloody Mary – made with Belvedere vodka and Chotto Matte’s own cocktail mix.
With the food, the menu includes a choice of a half bottle per person of a Prosecco, an Albarino or a Rioja Reserva. We chose the Albarino, Irexario de Saiar, Bodega Sucesores de Benito Santos, Spain, 2016. Crisp and refreshing, this had plenty of citrus, apricot characteristics to balance the flavours on the plate.
Likes: The robata beef short rib was for me the highlight of the meal. We also enjoyed the sushi and particularly the vegetarian sushi platter. The Bloody Mary was refreshing and spicy.
Dislikes: Some of the vegetarian courses were weak including the grilled courgettes, I would have felt short-changed if that was meant to be my main course.
Verdict: Chotto Matte's brunch menu is a great opportunity to try a range of the restaurant’s signature Nikkei dishes, a cocktail and ½ a bottle of wine per person. At £50pp, the quality and variety of food offered makes it a good deal not to be missed. Recommended.
Words and Photography by Greg Klerkx and Luiz Hara
In the jungle of London’s hyper-competitive restaurant market, claims to be the best of the best are as common as threats of a Tube strike. Few enough restaurants can make this claim in the first place with any hope for consensus; those that make the whispered short-list – ‘one of the best in the city’ – rarely stay there, whether done in by hubris, transient talent or just changing times.
It’s all the more remarkable, then, that Knightsbridge stalwart Zuma finds itself celebrating 15 years in business still among that happy few at the top of the pack. Pick your blog or guide; pick your year of review. There you’ll find Zuma, unwavering in its place as the go-to spot for inventively Japanese cuisine.
That’s something worth celebrating and we recently did just that at the invitation of Zuma’s founder Rainer Becker and his team, who’ve put together a 15-year tasting menu – an exclusive collection of the most iconic dishes from the past decade and a half.
Spoiler alert: there was absolutely nothing on this menu that was anything less than delicious. Not a duff note when it came to presentation, creativity or flavour. That makes for a potentially dull review, so we’ll work the thesaurus hard to find creative superlatives to describe what crossed our table.
First, like London buses, came a trio of starters. Suzuki no sashimi (thinly sliced sea bass with yuzu, truffle oil, and salmon roe) was so delicate that it practically levitated off its dish, the nearly translucent sea bass held in gravity’s check by a fine balance of tangy yuzu and earthy truffle oil. The salmon roe added that touch of the sea, and not a little complication to the balance, yet not a flavour was out of place.
The second dish, chu toro no osasshimi kousou fuumi (thinly sliced semi fatty tuna, chilli, coriander and sesame), was something like the sea bass’s cheekier cousin; the flavours turned up a notch, the spark of chilli held in check by aromatic coriander and sesame. It was almost a relief to tuck into the hourensou no goma ae (steamed spinach with sesame sauce), which hit our tastebuds like an earthy palate cleanser.
All three starters paired nicely with the Billecart-Salmon Brut Reserve NV, slightly flinty but with a long finish that cradled each of our starters with loving care.
Next arrived a favourite dish of the afternoon, and how could it not be? Wagyu no tataki, kuro toryufu ponzu gake (freshly seared wagyu sirloin tataki with black truffle ponzu) was every bit as unctuous and complex as its long title suggests, the black truffle ponzu – a palate-dazzler all on its own – bringing out the wagyu’s notes of summer grass and, well, pampering. We had the thought that if an Earth-annihilating meteor struck at that very moment, this would be a fine dish to go out on.
As with the starting trio, the wagyu/truffle juggernaut was accompanied by a simpler, more restrained dish, in this case piri kara dofu to abokado salada (fried tofu with avocado and Japanese herbs). The Wieninger ‘Wiener Gemischter Satz 2015, an Austrian speciality a-brim with gorgeous grapefruit and stone fruit yet with sufficient acidity to ensure it wraps nicely around the decadent flavours and textures of the wagyu.
Zuma wisely shifted gears at this point in the menu, offering a selection of nigiri sushi, premium sashimi and ‘chef special’ maki rolls, all made to the high standard of everything that’d come before. This beautifully presented array was paired with Kimura Junmai Ginjo, a clear, crisp sake hailing from one of Japan’s most venerable producers. Taken alone, this combination would have made us happy at most other Japanese restaurants in the city.
Our final three savoury dishes felt like the last burst of fireworks at an epic Guy Fawkes display, where what’s left in the arsenal is lobbed into the sky in one, spectacular go, the intention to dazzle and amuse. Ainame no koumi yaki to kousou (grilled Chilean sea bass with green chilli, ginger dressing) and gyuhire sumbibiyaki karami zuke (spicy beef tenderloin with sesame, red chilli and sweet soy) seemed like a reprise of our first course, with that much more body, depth and punch.
The straight man in this lively trio was shitake no ninniku fuumi (shitake mushroom with garlic and soy butter), so deep and flavourful it was practically another meat dish. Castello di Albola Chianti Classico Riserva 2013 made for a snappy, peppery match across all three dishes. It was a marvellous display, and we felt somewhat bereft that it was finished.
Becker surely anticipated such a let down, because the real sky blossom was still to come. Describing our pudding as merely ‘Deluxe Dessert Platter’ is somewhat like calling Big Ben a clock. Our recommendation is to savour the photo here, though you unfortunately won’t be able to savour the mango and raspberry sorbets, the carmelised banana cake, or the variety of tunnel-dark chocolate offerings; ganache and fondant and more. It was a symphony of sweetness in a playful suit, matched with Yume no yado, Yuzu shu, a cheeky, sharp sake reprising the yuzu notes we began with.
It’s hard to know what else to say about Zuma at 15, except perhaps the obvious: here’s to at least 15 more years of inventive, precise, exquisite Japanese cuisine.
Nikkei cooking is a style of Japanese cuisine created by Japanese migrants in different places around the world with significant diasporas – South America is one of these regions, especially in Brazil and Peru.
When my Japanese family migrated to Brazil with millions of others, they yearned to eat the food they were accustomed to, but they lacked familiar ingredients in their new adopted home – so Nikkei cuisine was born, out of necessity, with Japanese inspired dishes being created at home, using the local ingredients they could find at the time.
One of these ingredients was beef picanha - but what exactly is it?
The picanha beef cut comes from the cap lying above the top sirloin and rump areas; it is a triangular cut and just like the British rump, it has a beautiful layer of fat. It is not a muscle that moves much during the animal’s life, and so it remains tender. The picanha’s thick blanket of fat lends the meat flavour and succulence while protecting it from human error that may occur during grilling. And because it is little known in Europe, picanha is still relatively cheap.
Picanha symbolizes the authentic Brazilian churrasco where it is grilled encased in a thick layer of rock salt and nothing else. Growing up in my Nikkei home in São Paulo, we tended to use rather less rock salt, but basted the meat in a mixture of soy sauce, lime, garlic and olive oil during grilling.
I am thrilled to discover excellent quality Irish picanha available in the UK, and share this Nikkei Beef Picanha recipe with you so you will not need to travel far to taste picanha. This is a favourite recipe of mine and one I serve often for friends and at my own #NikkkeiSupperClub. As well as being super easy to prepare, it is perfect for the Summer months and once you have tried picanha, I think you will be hooked!
This recipe was created in collaboration with Irish Beef. To learn more about Irish Beef and discover a number of mouth-watering recipes using Irish beef, visit their website here.
For a chance to win a Weber Barbecue and try this recipe out in your own garden, please enter the 'Summer Beef Encounters' competition in collaboration with Irish Beef by clicking here and vote for my Nikkei Beef Picanha recipe, please! Good luck!
Nikkei Beef Picanha
with Yuzu, Soy and Chilli Dressing
Ingredients (serves 8):
• 1.3kg Irish beef picanha, whole piece
• 50g rock sea salt (do not use table or cooking salt or flakes)
• 120ml soy sauce
• 60ml extra-virgin olive oil
• 60ml yuzu juice (substitute with lime or lemon)
• 6 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 long red chilli, de-seeded and finely diced (keep ½ for decoration)
• Edible flowers like wild garlic, to decorate
• Micro coriander, to decorate
• ½ long red chilli, de-seeded and finely diced, to decorate (see above)
Method:
1. Score the fatty blanket on the picanha by making criss-cross cuts into the thick layer of fat covering one side. Cut the piece of picanha into 4 to 5 thick pieces of about 250g to 300g each about 5cm thick, keeping the fat covering the upper surface of each steak.
2. Place the steaks on a tray and cover them thoroughly in the rock sea salt, this will help to seal in the juices of the meat. Table or cooking salt is too fine and more of it will be needed to do the same job resulting in a very salty barbecued picanha, so do stick to rock salt for this recipe. In addition, rock salt does not penetrate nearly as much as finer salts, giving a delicious and lightly salty crust to the meat. If your salt tolerance is low, you may prefer not to salt the beef and only use the dressing to season it as it is served.
3. Now make the soy & yuzu or lime dressing by mixing together the soy sauce, olive oil, yuzu or lime juice, crushed garlic cloves and ½ of diced red chilli - ½ of this dressing will be used for basting the meat while on the grill and the other ½ will be used as a dipping sauce to serve with the slices of beef.
4. BBQ Method - Get your barbecue hot and ready for the picanha, and generously brush the grill plates with oil. Grill the picanha pieces fat-side up for a few minutes until a little juice leaks out of the steaks. Turn the steaks onto their sides to grill for a few minutes more on each side. Using a brush, baste the meat with the reserved ½ of soy and yuzu lime dressing every time your turn the steaks. Finally grill fat-side down, moving the steaks away from the hottest part of the fire to avoid over-cooking and to reduce the chance of the fire flaring up from the dripping fat. Grill to your desired doneness, it should take anything from 15 to 25 minutes depending on the thickness of the steaks and how fierce the fire in your barbecue is. I use the ‘finger poke method’ to know when the meat is done - I like my picanha rather pink, so the meat should feel bouncy but firm cooked for about 15 to 20 minutes in total. Alternatively, you can take one steak out of the grill and cut a small piece of it from its thickest part to check for doneness.
5. Kitchen Grill Method - If you don’t have a barbecue you can still cook the picanha under a hot grill in your kitchen. Place the steaks over a rack within a roasting tin, this is important as the picanha’s fat will drip into it and not in your oven. Grill the steaks for 7 minutes flesh side up, then turn them over and grill fat side up, preferably on a lower rack or at the bottom of the oven, for another 8 to 12 minutes, basting the beef with the reserved ½ of soy and yuzu lime dressing for 2 minutes before the end of cooking time. If using the kitchen grill, a meat thermometer read is more accurate than on the barbecue – the internal temperature of the meat should be 60°C for rare, 63°C for medium rare, 71°C for medium and 77°C for well-done. If you don’t have a meat thermometer, use the finger poke method described above.
6. Let the picanha rest for 5 minutes before serving. Brush off the excess salt. The meat should be sliced thinly and served with the reserved soy and yuzu/lime dressing. In this way, guests can choose the slices they want, some will prefer more rare, others more well-done so everyone is happy!
Name: Sushisamba
Where: 110 Bishopsgate, London, EC2N 4AY, http://www.sushisamba.com
Cost: Average dinner cost per person is around £45 (not including drinks). Small plates for starters range from £6.50 to £16, ceviches and tiraditos from £12 to £25, while an assortment of 10 sashimi costs £81. Dishes from the robata charcoal grill cost from £8 to £144, while Kobe beef dishes cost up to £1,000 for 1kg ishiyaki on hot stone.
About: Sushisamba has probably the most stunning alfresco terrace in London, 38 floors up in the Heron Tower, opposite Liverpool Street Station. No less arresting is the arrival - guests reach it after a rapid ascent in a glass-sided lift with increasingly spectacular views as it nears the top.
With branches in New York, Miami, Las Vegas and London, Sushisamba offers Executive Chef Claudio Cardoso’s unique interpretation of Nikkei cuisine, a blend of Japanese, Peruvian and Brazilian cooking, reflecting the migration of Japanese to South America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
As a Nikkei chef myself, and having written a book on the subject (Nikkei Cuisine: Japanese Food the South American Way, click here for more details), I was curious to try Chef Cardoso’s take on Nikkei cooking. Add to that, a brand new cocktail menu which is now available at Sushisamba, we decided to pay a long overdue visit.
What we ate: Diners are recommended to order a few ceviche or sushi plates, then 2 to 3 hot dishes from the robata grill menu. We started with green bean tempura (£7) – crunchy and lovely, the humble veg was transformed by the rich and delicious black truffle aioli it was served with.
Better still were the crispy taquitos of lobster (£17 for 2) – these were delectable filled with fresh lobster, and a refreshing hit of chilli and aromatic lime.
Salt and pepper squid (£13) came with dry miso, Japanese shichimi chilli pepper, sea salt, crispy garlic, smoked soy and bonito tail sauce.
We could not resist a couple of Kobe beef sliders (£6.50 each), with horseradish mayo, tomato and lettuce. Served in a striking, jet-black bun possibly made with activated carbon flour, the beef was exquisitely flavoured and tender.
Better still was the Nikkei ceviche (£14) which included raw salmon served with a zingy dressing made with sesame, tamarind, ponzu and aji chilli and garnishing of seaweed and macadamia nuts. Served with crispy pumpkin, the ceviche had a great combination of sweet, creamy, citrus and chilli heat flavours.
A classic Nikkei dish invented by the Japanese in Peru is the tiradito - a bit like ceviche but with the fish sliced sashimi-style and marinated for only a few minutes. We had the kampachi (amberjack) tiradito (£14), with yuzu, black truffle oil, sea salt, garlic and chive. Served on a gorgeous block of Himalayan salt, this was good although the amberjack had a rather watery texture.
Anticuchos are a traditional Peruvian street food, made from meat marinated in vinegar, garlic and chilli, and grilled on a wooden skewer. We had the anticucho de corazon de pollo (chicken hearts) with Peruvian corn and aji panca which is a Peruvian smoked and dried red chilli (£12).
As a Paulistano, I could not help but order the Moqueca Mista (£30), a typical Brazilian dish, here consisting of jumbo shrimp, squid, seabass, mussels, clams, dende oil, coconut milk and chimichurri rice. This had richly flavoured mussels, although the rice was a little stodgy like rice pudding and the sauce was over salty but oddly under-flavoured. I really wanted to love this dish but overall I found it disappointing given the price point.
The tiger maki (£16) were well presented, and the selection of nigiri (priced at £6 to £24 each) was delicious with the freshest fish and seafood.
For dessert, we chose the Zen Garden (£13). With yuzu curd, bergamot tea biscuits, chocolate, lychee and peach stones, this was a creative dish, beautifully presented and with light, well balanced flavours.
Our second dessert was he Alfajores (£12.50) – this had various elements including dulce de leche ice cream, alfajores biscuit, caramel, coconut mousse, dark chocolate and marshmallow.
What We Drank: Cocktails cost £13 or £14. There is a wide range of sakes on offer, while the entry level white wine is a New Zealand Gewurztraminer, Millton, at £56. The entry level red is a Marselan from Casa Valduga, Brazil at £46. If you fancy bringing along your own wine, you can but bear in mind that there is a £45 corkage fee for wines and a £75 per bottle for Champagne.
We started in the bar with a couple of cocktails from the new cocktail menu (all £13). The Sesame Old Fashioned combined sesame-washed Scotch whisky with salted caramel and maple. Served over an improbably massive cube of crystal-clear ice, this was rich and creamy, with a lovely nutty finish.
The Yuzu Gin Fizz had Bombay Sapphire gin, yuzu juice and shiso infusion, with fresh shiso and mint leaves. Served in a jazzy orange tin can, this was ultra-refreshing, with a thrilling intensity of fresh yuzu fruit flavour.
With the meal, we shared a bottle of deliciously aromatic Gruner Veltliner, Weingut Willi Brundlmayer, Terrassen, Kamptal, Austria (£67).
With dessert, we had a couple of the sweeter cocktails - the Miso Mule (£13) combined Grey Goose Vodka, lime, ginger and a miso and coconut reduction, served long and lightly carbonated. This had a refreshing citrus hit, as well as an unexpected but not unwelcome hint of pineapple.
The Plantain Punch was made from Bacardi Carta Negra rum, plantain puree and aromatized wine shaken with egg white, banana, cacao and a coffee infusion. Served on the rocks, it had a rich banana and coffee sweetness.
Likes: The extensive selection of cocktails is well thought-out, perfectly-made and reasonably priced, while the London skyline views are just second to none. The sushi were also very fine.
Dislikes: The wine list is expensive and the moqueca was disappointing.
Verdict: For glamorous cocktails, fine sushi and a spectacular London City views, it is hard to beat Sushisamba. Recommended.
