Japanese please

Just 10 years ago, anyone looking for authentic Japanese food in the UK would have been hard pushed to find more than a handful of restaurants in London and barely any outside the capital. Yet in recent years, the British appetite for all things Oriental has increased significantly, and Japanese cuisine - from pricey top eateries to supermarket sushi - is coming into its own.

These days, fast-food Japanese eateries such as Yo! Sushi, Wagamama and Moshi Moshi are familiar names in London at least, bringing in annual turnovers of about £13m, £20m and £3m respectively. In addition, restaurants such as Zuma, Sumosan and Tsunami have all opened this year and garnered plenty of media coverage, various awards and celebrity attention.

Accessibility
So why now? Janina Wolkow, one of the partners behind the recently opened 130-seat Sumosan restaurant in London, says one of the key differences today is accessibility. "There have always been Japanese restaurants around, especially in London, but the new ones work because they have a different approach," she says. "The older Japanese restaurants offered traditional cuisine and style at high prices - and often with no English-speaking staff. How can you expect to pull in a wider crowd if you can't communicate with them? The whole concept of today's Japanese food in Britain is making it accessible."

Takeo Sawai founded Miyama, a 64-seat restaurant in Mayfair, 20 years ago. Miyama was then very much in the old mould to which Wolkow refers. "In those days, in order to justify the high prices we charged, everything had to be authentic," Sawai explains. "So staff were brought in from Japan and highly trained, but they were difficult and expensive to retain - I even had to find them wives on occasion. Up to 80% of the clientele in those days were Japanese, or City businessmen who travelled to Japan."

Now things have changed. Increased travel - several thousand Brits have now tasted the real thing in Japan and South Korea as a result of the World Cup - fusion food, plus the growing demand for healthy eating have meant people have a better knowledge of and are favouring the cuisine. And customers don't need to have been to Japan necessarily - the USA will do. "In New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, Japanese food is a way of life and you find sushi on every corner," explains Divia Lalvani, a partner in Zuma, another of the trendy Japanese restaurants to have opened in London this year. "It's not considered a luxury over there as it has been here."

Opened in July, the minimalist Zuma has become hugely popular, not least as a celebrity hangout. It is currently serving about 290 covers per day, with an average spend of £40 for dinner and £20 for lunch.

The increased knowledge of Japanese cuisine has been an important factor in the restaurant's success. "People now know the cuisine is not just about raw fish," Lalvani says, "but UK customers are also beginning to realise how healthy and varied Japanese food really is."

Educated palates?
Like many other modern Japanese restaurants, Zuma has adapted its menu to suit the less educated palate. Menus need to be "authentic, not traditional", according to Zuma's co-founder and chef Rainer Becker: "The Western palate favours more dressed-up, flavoured food so we might add chilli paste to a traditional dish, for example. We also offer a wide range of dishes and prices. Fresh fish is very expensive so our sushi isn't cheap, but you can opt for the grill if you want to spend less. It's all still light, healthy and dairy-free."

This last fact is also attracting vegetarians to Japanese haunts, with Zuma offering home-made tofu from fresh soya milk and 12 veggie dishes on the menu.

Although prices have come down, it's still not cheap to eat in good Japanese restaurants, with customers paying anything from £30 up to £70 for dinner. However, in parallel to the upmarket venues for trendy urbanites, the past few years have also seen an explosion in the growth of fast-food Japanese style, with sushi and noodle bars springing up in supermarkets and on high-street corners.

Ian Neill, chief executive of the noodle bar chain, Wagamama, says the "volume venues" are providing an introduction and stepping stone to other Japanese cuisine for the general public. Wagamama's target market is largely 18- to 35-year-olds who would rather spend £10 on healthy, fast, freshly-cooked food which they perceive to be better value for money than a burger. The business is now bringing in turnover of about £20m a year.

Dismissed by some at the top end of the market as "not real sushi" and "not even Japanese", the sushi conveyor chain Yo! Sushi is still credited with introducing punters to the concept and offering a value-for-money alternative to a sandwich, as well as entertainment value.

It's an option customers appear to be embracing. Yo! Sushi's 13th outlet opened in Manchester last week, and managing director Robin Roland says the company intends to have 25 sites around the country by 2006. The turnover of £13m this year is expected to reach £20m a year by 2003.

Yet despite Yo! Sushi's broader popularity in the UK, the Japanese restaurant market remains a capital affair, with relatively few restaurants outside London. Sawai says there are two main reasons, the first being the absence of chefs. "You can bring in chefs from Japan but, without exception, they won't speak any English," he says. "They can buy Japanese books, rent videos, make and meet Japanese friends in London, but not outside the capital. Without that contact, they don't stay long."

The second, he says, is simply a lack of raw materials: "It's very difficult to obtain the necessary ingredients outside London. So restaurants outside the capital tend to be run by Japanese wives married to Englishmen, and the quality difference is greater than you find, for example, between Chinese restaurants in Soho and ones in York, or Newcastle."

Caroline Bennett, managing director of Moshi Moshi, which first introduced the sushi conveyor concept to the UK in 1994, opened her first restaurant in Brighton, but has since launched a further four in London. Turnover at the end of the latest financial year was £3m, yet Bennett is cautious about expansion further afield - not for the absence of potential customers, but because of a limited supply chain.

"More and more people are travelling and experiencing real sushi," she says. "Once you've tried it, there's no going back and our Brighton restaurant, for example, is doing really well. But the supply chain for fresh fish in the UK needs to be significantly improved. There's no point trying to offer real sushi without the right logistics in place and that's difficult outside London. British fishermen just don't take care of their fish in the same way as the Japanese."

Almost without exception the top-end Japanese restaurants have either native Japanese involved as chefs, managers or investors, or head staff who have trained in Japan. It doesn't take 10 years to learn to use a Japanese knife, says Wolkow, but it does take a lot of training.

Sawai is worried that too much dilution will be a bad thing. "To broaden the market, people are using less-well trained chefs, and a lack of knowledge when handling delicate products such as raw fish can be extremely hazardous," he says. "I would only eat properly cooked food in anything but a top Japanese restaurant."

Old names and newcomers

Sumosan 26 Albermarle Street
London W1S 4HY
Tel: 020 7495 5999
Opened: May 2002
Seats: 130
Average spend: £40-£50
Covers: 70 lunch/125 evening
Staff: 30
German owners began with a Japanese restaurant in Moscow in 1997. Chef Bubker Behlit was brought over to open the London site last May.

Zuma 5 Raphael Street
London SW7 1DL
Tel: 020 7584 1010
Opened: July 2002
Seats: main dining area, 74; sushi bar, 12; robata dining, 18; private dining, 6-24
Average spend: £40-£50 dinner, £20 lunch
Covers: 280-290 per day (lunch and dinner)
Staff: 15 kitchen, 20 front of house
Minimalist Zuma, specialising in sushi, black cod and chicken wings, enjoys the patronage of many celebrities.

Izakaya Mermaid Bay, Cardiff Bay
South Glamorgan CF10 5BW
Tel: 029 2049 2939
Opened: December 1999
Seats: 80
Average spend: £22
Covers: 15 covers lunch/100 dinner
Staff: 12
A Welshman and his Japanese wife run this modern waterfront complex

Miyama (Mayfair)
38 Clarges Street
London W1Y 7PJ
Tel: 020 7493 3807
Opened: 1982
Seats: 64
Average spend: £45
Covers: 55 lunch/50 evening
Staff: 16
Traditional Japanese restaurant

Tsunami 1-7 Voltaire Road
London SW4 6DQ
Tel: 020 7978 1610
Opened: October 2001
Seats: 95
Average spend: £35
Covers: 100 per day
Staff: 10 kitchen; 10 front of house
Trendy bistro named Best Japanese in the Time Out Eating and Drinking Awards 2001. Chef Singi Nakamura trained at Nobu.

Nobu 19 Old Park Lane, London
Tel: 020 7447 4747
Opened: February 1997
Seats: 180
Average spend: £60
Covers: 350 dinner
Staff: 40 kitchen; 70 front of house
Michelin-starred Nobu is said to have inspired many chef and customers to explore Japanese food. The restaurant is a joint venture between chef Nobuyika Matsuhisa and actor Robert de Niro.

Yo! Sushi Head office
Tel: 020 7841 0700
Opened: 1997, first restaurant in Poland Street in Soho, London
No of outlets: 13 restaurants (11 in London, one in Edinburgh and one in Manchester). Plus three Yo! Below bars.
Covers: 21,000 per week
Average spend: £13.50
No of employees: 425
Annual turnover: £13m (2002)

Wagamama
Head office
Tel: 020 7631 3140
Opened: 1992. First restaurant opened in Streatham Street, Bloomsbury, London
No of outlets: 14, 12 in London
Covers: 60,000 per week
Average spend: £11
Employees: 600
Annual turnover: £20m (2001)

Moshi Moshi, Brighton 7 Bartholomew Square Brighton BN1 1JS
Tel: 01273 719195
Opened: September 2000
Seats: 100
Average spend: £18
Covers: 50-60 lunch/100-130 dinner
Staff: 21
Since 2000, managing director Caroline Bennett has opened four more restaurants in London, with a further two planned for this and next year.