Umu

Umu is a Japanese restaurant on Bruton Place in Mayfair, London, that serves kaiseki, the seasonal multi-course meal of Kyoto.

The name means roughly of nature, and the cooking follows the Kyoto tradition built around water, vegetables and fish. Yoshinori Ishii shaped the kaiseki menu for years as executive chef, and in 2014 he brought Ryo Kamatsu from abroad to become his second in the kitchen. Kamatsu, born in Argentina to Japanese parents, had trained as sous chef at Kaiseki Ichimonji in Tokyo, a restaurant known for tea ceremony meals, and later co-founded an izakaya of his own. He took over from Ishii as executive chef in 2020.

Much of the produce comes from British farms and fishermen, with other ingredients from traditional suppliers in Japan. On the à la carte, the back and belly of tuna are lightly grilled and served with a trio of sauces, and wild Cornish lobster comes in a bisque of tofu and miso spiced with shichimi pepper made in the house. The kaiseki menu has included sake-steamed tilefish with asparagus rice, red sea bream with Japanese mountain vegetables, and wagyu beef with bamboo shoots. Other courses have paired monkfish zosui with a black truffle yolk sauce, and charcoal-grilled roe deer with a celeriac katsu and wasabi.

A pale, windowless wooden front hides the room from the mews, and the door has no handle: a sensor opens it. Inside, the walls are finished in wood, and much of the tableware is made for the restaurant. The sommelier matches sake to each course from a long list.