Hachi Japanese BBQ, 56 Brewer Street, London W1F 9TJ. Starters and sides £5.80-£11.20, grill platters £7.80-£139.70, desserts £3.20, beer from £5.60, sake from £11.80 a glass
For a restaurant where it’s possible to spend significant amounts of money, Hachi, in London’s Soho, doesn’t look like much. It has a narrow exterior of black brick. There is something eager about the window display: multiple menus, some with pictures of food; a shelf with emptied bottles of Japanese liquor, as if to say that good times have been had here. For a while there was a TV screen in the window showing cuts of beef and later a chiller cabinet, filled with slabs of animal. The small dining room doesn’t look like much either: walls clad in fake brick and hung with cartoony images of animals indicating their various cuts; wide black tables inset with grills; a semi-open kitchen.
