Benihana

37 Sackville Street London W1
(Also Swiss Cottage & Chelsea)
Tel: 0207 494 1456

Benihana is a fun Japanese style restaurant, one I had passed on a previous shopping trip to London. It's not a standard restaurant because the tables are designed and built around large grills in order for the chef to cook just for you and your friends at an individual grill top. The result is a culinary master class from a chef, combining cooking with stand up comedy, juggling, mimicking many of our regional accents and making people literally cry with laughter.

The style is teppanyaki and, once again, you choose your main course and the soup, salad, beans prawn appetisers, courgettes onions and the rice are included. Service is friendly and efficient and the chefs put on a juggling show at the table. The wine list is balanced and far from expensive, we enjoyed a bottle of superb Sancerre, a Lacote Blanche 2001, a favourite but one which complemented the atmosphere and ambiance created in this unique blend of cuisine and entertainment.

The unusual opening to the meal is that the staff bring you a warm cloth to wipe your hands, then they'll take your order for your starters, normally yakitori, sushi, tempura. Then they take your main course order and a chef will come and cook it on the table because there's this grey surface and he cooks on it. You can have for a main course prawns, lobster, fish, scallops, steak, chicken or calamari all served with a mustard and ginger sauce; included with this are beans, onions, courgettes, extra prawns, soup, salad and rice.

The starters arrive with speed, in our case a delicious bowl of Onion Soup and some magnificent Shitake Mushrooms whilst we also tasted the Hibachi Prawns (Tiger Prawns to you and I). What followed was a sight to behold, a magnificent tray of meat, prawns, rice, mushrooms, vegetables and eggs. The chef proceeded to arrange the food ready to be cooked whilst making contact with the various people on our table of six, finding out where each lived, their interests, liking for food and even their favourite television programmes. This is real contact with the chef, usually imprisoned in a far off kitchen, invisible to all but the waiting staff. Here the chef is naked, the centrepiece in an evening cabaret where his cooking skills as well as his humour, and his juggling skills, are open to inspection and appreciation.


The first thing the chef created, after providing a platform of international humour, was fried rice, using the eggs and the rice from his immense tray of ingredients. This added a new dimension to the word fresh in restaurants!

The menu offers a really impressive range of opportunities, with fish and steak dominating the proceedings, with a supporting cast of vegetables including some stunning asparagus and mushrooms. Tracy, my guest, selected the Filet Mignon and I selected the Chateaubriand, and each was cooked with care and style, both to perfection in amongst the international humour that spread around our table, all initiated by the humorous anecdotes and mimicking by the chef, a true perfectionist demonstrating the culinary skills as each diner looked on in real admiration.

Desserts include sorbets and ice cream or fruit salad. There is a selection of beers together with a fine wine list, including quite a number where you can have a single glass, highly appropriate for this type of restaurant, as well as a range of waters and cocktails.

The whole experience is relaxed, enjoyable and, most of all, fun filled, especially in a group.

Great fun for all concerned; expect to pay at least

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