I find the trick to lovely places like this is to look for a good set menu, unless your set to drop a wad of cash, which I definitely wasn’t. Sake no Hana launched the Sakura menu inline with the Cherry Blossom season which gave me a great chance to try the restaurant as well as see how they decorated the restaurant
It was beautiful up there. The wood panels are a photographer’s dream and the flowers twisted through looked lovely. Decorated by Rebecca Louise Law it was made to look like clouds of flowers over the restaurant.
The menu sits at £37 for 4 courses plus welcome cocktail, which, while is an expensive ordinary lunch, is good value for a splurge.
The welcome cocktail was so delicate looking, a definite salute to the festival. Unfortunately for me, the taste of cherry like that reminds me of cough medecine for my childhood so I think it’s fair to say, it was lost on me.
Each dish that cane through was presented beautifully and tasted amazing!
First up was the miso soup- very light and with a small piece of fried tofu.
Then it went to a sushi selection. If you are ever wondering, you can 100% tell the difference between fancy sushi and every day sushi! It’s hard to pick but I think my favourite piece was the crunchy Californian (and not just because I’m about to become a California Girl). But they were a amazing – perfect rice and such great fresh fish. The prawn nigiri was so sweet & delicate and inside that leave wrapped up is a little nigiri present! I think I could have just sat there all day eating sushi and did get jealous when the group next to us had a mega platter come out.
For the mains we got 3/4 on offer to be able taste them all: the family were not up for the tofu dish 😑.
So we had:
Prawn tempura: I didn’t actually taste any of the prawns but did have some veg and the tempura was very, very light which was great as you didn’t lose the flavour of the veg. I hear the prawns were good 😀
Salmon in champagne yuzu miso sauce: so, so good. Salmon was cooked perfectly and the sauce was divine. I think this was my favourite
Steak: thin slices of an incredibly tender rib eye beef which had a great chilli ponzu sauce. I used the sauce on my tempura!
Then along came dessert… Now I am not that big on dessert (I don’t count cake as dessert because I like eating it by itself not with a meal) so don’t tend to order it myself, just taste a bite of someone else’s. But when it come with your meal, you don’t argue 😋 It was a cherry chocolate delice and my God was it divine! I think I ate half of this which is pretty unusual for me. It was basically like a ball of chocolate heaven with em ough cherry to compliment but not over powering it.
My advice: keep an eye out for these great deals. You can book them through Open Table and they are absolutely worth it. One day I’ll go and order a-la-carte and love every minute of it.
Value for money: the set menu makes an expensive menu an option and is absolutely worth it
Service: impeccable
Reservations: yes definitely do.
Jilltopia 