Tucked away at the back of a fancy boutique on Brook Street, right next to Claridge’s hotel, 123V Browns is not a restaurant you could stumble across. I walked back-and-forth several times past this grand grade II listed building before plucking up the courage to knock – it’s the kind of intimidating clothes shop where the doors are personally unlocked for you to walk in – and ask if I could possibly be in the right place. ‘Ah, you’re here for the restaurant? ‘
You have to know it’s there to find it.
There are other meals on option, but the star of the show at this restaurant is the bottomless sushi. Although empty when we arrived at 2pm, the place quickly filled up. I was sitting close enough to the entrance to hear pretty much everyone ask the same question as they were greeted by the waitress: “Is the bottomless sushi deal on?”
That’s why I was there, with my two favourite companions, on a very cold and wet winter afternoon. In the milder months, there is a lovely garden in which you can sit, but this was a day when it felt good to be inside and snug.
The system itself was easily negotiated. If we wanted, and we did, we could start with one of everything, and then take it from there.
The problem, and let me just say it straight out, was the time constraint: put simply, would we be able to eat enough in a two hour period, with service as slow as this initially appeared to be? Much of our mumbled conversation between courses revolved around this.
First came the crispy rice sushi. I’ve never had this before, and they were among my favourites. Small ovals of crisply fried rice topped with, for example, tofu crab, miso aubergine, and black mushroom. The green dynamite, topped with a jalapeño was the biggest hit with us.
And then we waited. And waited. And mumbled under our breaths about when our two hours might have been timed from, and whether they were growing the rice back in the kitchen before serving it up. The second dish took some time, it would be fair to say, and came into stages, but every single piece brought with it its own punch. The textures and flavours were amazing; from fresh and fragrant to umami rich, the food was excellent and frequently surprising. Sushi has never been at the top of my list when it comes to food, but this was an entirely taste-changing experience.
And then the courses just kept coming. Each morsel saw us eagerly discussing what we might order when the entire menu had been tried.
We finished a first dose of everything with half an hour to spare, and then, inevitably, over ordered. I’ll tell you now what our favourites were. We re-ordered the green dynamite, the green velvet, the Dragon roll, and the sushi tacos. Equally inevitably, we were left with about 10 pieces of sushi on the plate. It seemed logical to us that a place with the environmental ethics of any Alexis Gauthier restaurant would let us sneak a couple of bits of sushi out, rather than chuck them in the bin. So after a bit more mumbling, we sheepishly asked if we could have a little box to take away.
Absolutely not.
Out of sheer greed (and a touch of spite), we ate as much of what remained as we could fit in our already bloated stomachs, and pretty much waddled out. After we got over the initial indignation, it seemed pretty logical that bottomless sushi is a thing that you eat in rather than takeout. But hey, it was worth a try.
Bardo Burner 