To say that Korean-American chef Akira Back has been shaped by a range of madly disparate cultural forces is to put it mildly. Born in Seoul, he moved to Aspen, Colorado, when he was 14, spent most of his youth ripping it up as a professional snowboarder, perfected Japanese cuisine under the exacting tutelage of sushi master Kenichi Kanada, and opened his first restaurant amid the throbbing neon-lit whirl of Las Vegas.
You might expect some of these intriguing, highly-specific geographical influences to be apparent in Back’s much anticipated first London restaurant. However, having now eaten at Akira Back at The Mandarin Oriental Mayfair, I can confidently say that its conceptual lodestar is nothing so much as the safe, cosseting Anywheresville of international luxury culture itself.
