HIMI.

HIMI

The nigiri arrives with house-made pickled fennel instead of gari, and the reviewer who noticed said she preferred it, which tells you more about this kitchen than the three-star kitchens its chefs came out of (London on the Inside).

Why go

Tamas Naszai and Tomoko Hasegawa ran Roji, a ten-seat omakase room, until it closed in 2024; between them they have worked at the three-Michelin-starred L'Abysse au Pavillon Ledoyen in Paris, Ginza Shimon in Tokyo and Sake No Hana in London (The Nudge; London on the Inside). What they opened instead, in the old INO Gastrobar site off Carnaby Street in February 2025, is drinking food built with counter technique. The charcoal robata sits close enough that The Nudge reports feeling the radiant heat from the charcoal in the grill lapping away at your skin from just a few feet away. The kale salad gets char-grilled in a metal sieve over those coals, in full view if you are at the counter (Hot Dinners). The kitchen makes the tofu in-house, finishes the scallop tempura with sea urchin salt, and kisses the trout nigiri with a blowtorch. Sourcing follows Roji's rule of British and European wherever possible, so the tartare is Wyndford beef and the scallops are hand-dived Scottish.

Order this / avoid

• Order: the Torikara, two kinds of fried chicken with kombu mayonnaise and sansho pepper, which Catherine Hanly rated as maybe the best Japanese fried chicken we've ever had1. Then the chef's five-piece nigiri selection, and the Ebichili, char-grilled red shrimp served with its own fried heads in a squid-ink pepper sauce. Ask to be guided on the sake: there are bottles here imported from Kimijimaya Yokohama that nowhere else in the UK pours. Finish with Dioka, walnut cookies with sake lees custard, which Tamas Naszai based on the cookies of his Hungarian childhood.
• Avoid: assuming a walk-in. London on the Inside says it "frequently" shows as booked out online, and there are four window seats, a counter and a small rear room. If the site says full, the handful of outdoor seats are the play. And take the counter over the rear room; both reviewers who sat in both say so.

What locals & experts say

• London on the Inside, Jules Pearson (May 2025): Simply put, HIMI is one of London's best Japanese restaurants. If you have any interest at all in Japanese food, it's an essential visit. On the sushi: We loved the sea bass, tuna, and especially the fatty trout, gently kissed with a blowtorch before serving.3
• Hot Dinners, Catherine Hanly (Mar 2025): she is generous and precise about the pivot from omakase, We thought the sushi experience at Roji was sublime, but we can totally see why Tamas and Tomoko wanted to liberate themselves from the constraints of classic sushi cooking and shake things up a bit. Happily London diners are the ones who win in this situation.1
• The Nudge, Jason Allen (Feb 2025): on the kitchen's manner at the counter, nothing is rushed, and nothing is stressed. No shouting, no barking orders. It's almost contemplative, with a near-forensic attention to detail. He is also the one who calls the format a London first and hopes for more.2
• What it has not got: no ranking, no award, and no national critic on record. HIMI has a page in the MICHELIN Guide's London selection, but the badge on it could not be read by any fetch route, so no distinction is claimed here.
• Local rec: Jeff has it as a "New Japanese izakaya 2025." Correct on both counts. REAL.

Good to know

• Timing: Tuesday to Saturday, per The Nudge in February 2025. No daily service times are published anywhere, so check before you go.
• Booking: book, and book early. The counter can be reserved as well as the tables.
• What it costs: as of the 2025 reviews, GBP 5.50 for edamame, GBP 6.50 for the kale or the tofu, GBP 9.50 for the fried chicken, GBP 18 to GBP 18.50 for the tuna sashimi or the shrimp, and GBP 27 to GBP 29 for five pieces of nigiri, the higher figure being the later review. A 15% discretionary service charge is added.
• Dietary: the venue marks its own menu, with [V] on the edamame and the squash tempura, [VE] and [GF] on the char-grilled kale salad, and a vegan and gluten-free option available on the house tofu. It asks you to tell staff about any allergy. Hot Dinners also found a chocolate sorbet that can be made vegetarian, gluten-free and dairy-free. Nothing is published about cross-contamination, and the kitchen runs a shared fryer and grill, so celiac diners should ask directly.
• Where: 4 Newburgh Street, W1F 7RF, in Carnaby, a couple of minutes from Oxford Circus. Look for the noren curtain. Note this is Soho, not Marylebone.
• Sitting: the counter faces the open kitchen; there is a brighter downstairs room with a skylight at the back, and window seats over Newburgh Street.
• Hygiene: FSA rating 5, inspected 27 February 2025.

Jeff's take (his words)

• Note: "New Japanese izakaya 2025" REAL.

Verdict

should-visit — Two chefs who came through a three-star Paris kitchen, a Ginza sushi counter and their own ten-seat omakase room decided to cook drinking food instead, and the detail that proves they meant it is the pickled fennel they serve with the nigiri in place of gari. The grill is close enough to the counter that you feel the coals, the kale gets char-grilled in a metal sieve over them, the tofu is made in-house, and the sake list carries bottles imported from Kimijimaya Yokohama that nowhere else in the UK has. Five pieces of nigiri run about GBP 29 and the fried chicken GBP 9.50, which for that pedigree is a bargain. It is a detour rather than a pilgrimage because nothing here is ranked or awarded on any readable record.