London’s Most Expensive Restaurant Overview

London’s most expensive restaurant has its least visible presence. Sushi Kanesaka lies behind a dark, unmarked wooden door in Mayfair’s 45 Park Lane hotel, the exterior of which also fails to advertise the place.

Further confusing matters, the entrance leads off a private room in the hotel’s Bar 45, whose dim, louche, ’50s Italian nightlife vibe clashes with the occasional appearance of a Japanese okami-san in traditional dress as she prepares for one of the evening’s two services.

At which point bar patrons must wonder what, exactly, went into their Negronis. 

But a restaurant doesn’t need shouty signage to grab passersby when there are only nine seats to fill and the set menu costs £420 (about $530).

Chef Shinji Kanesaka holds two Michelin stars for his equally exclusive restaurant in Tokyo, and he has opened more in Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

London’s Most Expensive Restaurant Prices

While other London restaurants offer more expensive individual statement dishes, such as the roughly $800 Wagyu tomahawk at Nusr-Et, Kanesaka’s 18-course set menu is the U.K.’s priciest, with sake pairings adding at least another $180 or so to that bill. 

Kanesaka-san came to London for a few days just as that Michelin star was announced, preparing his omakase menu for some of London’s other Michelin-starred chefs and a few invited guests.

London’s Most Expensive Restaurant Staff

While having your sushi prepared by the world-famous chef in Mayfair won’t be directly replicable by London diners, the experience inside the hotel restaurant (assuming you can snag a reservation) is otherwise very much the same as going to his original, equally tiny Ginza restaurant on which the London room is closely modeled.

The London staff all trained there, and the interior is nearly identical in its artful simplicity, with the same traditional hinoki-wood ice chests and a counter made from a single length of the identical variety of cypress, in this case milled from a 500-year-old tree; its pale blond tone lightens the space and disguises the fact that there are no windows. 

London’s Most Expensive Restaurant Menu

The price and the reputation create an expectation of perfection, the idea that nothing must fail or the whole meal is a wash.

The nori is crisp and bracingly saline, the house-blend rice from Yamagata unctuous and comforting.

The fish spans a range of taste and sensation, from the clean oceanic pop of salmon roe to a richly sweet octopus that has been simmered for five hours.

The sushi creations are presented as delicate single pieces but comprise a satisfying meal over 18 courses; the smoked-eel hand roll, in particular, has a generous heft. Everything is accompanied by the best sakes available anywhere, notably a buttery, unpasteurized Koueigiku Gekko and a barrel-aged Choryo Yamahai taru sake.