Tenshi
Okonomiyaki is the house dish here, a cabbage batter cooked on the griddle and finished with brown sauce, and it is the reason to pick this room over the sushi counters further up Upper Street (Time Out).
Why go
The place calls itself a Japanese izakaya and cooks like one, which means the menu spreads wide rather than deep: sushi and sashimi, tempura, yaki-soba, udon, katsu curry, and the okonomiyaki. Tenshi means angel, which is also the tube stop at the end of the road. The weekday shape matters more than anything else about it. Monday to Thursday the doors open at 5pm and there is no lunch at all, while Saturday and Sunday run straight through from noon (venue site). Sake and whisky are on the list, and lunchtime bento is the cheap way in at weekends.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the okonomiyaki, then a couple of small plates around it. Time Out finishes on the desserts:
some black sesame ice-cream or various aduki bean desserts.
- Avoid: walking up on a Tuesday lunchtime. The kitchen does not open until 5pm Monday to Thursday.
What locals & experts say
- Time Out London (2014): three stars out of five, with the verdict that Tenshi
impresses with a wide selection of Japanese dishes: sushi, sashimi and tempura, yaki-soba (fried noodles), katsu curry and udon noodle soups.
That review is from 15 August 2014 and carries no byline, so treat it as a record of the range rather than of current form.1 - Food hygiene (2025): FSA rating 5 from Islington on 18 November 2025, with all three categories Good.3
- Local rec: Jeff's list, filed as a Vittles izakaya recommendation (his note below). The Vittles piece itself did not surface in verification, so that provenance is his rather than cited.
Good to know
- Timing: Monday to Thursday 5pm to 10pm. Friday noon to 3pm and 5.30pm to 11pm. Saturday noon to 11pm. Sunday noon to 10pm.
- Booking: take a table in advance through the venue's reservation page or by phone. Upper Street fills on weekend evenings.
- Getting there: five minutes on foot from Angel station.
- Coverage warning: there is no recent critical review of this kitchen in the approved press. Everything above about the food comes from 2014 or from the venue itself.
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: "Vittles rec of izakaya" REAL.
Verdict
could-visit — A long-running family izakaya on Upper Street that cooks the full spread, okonomiyaki through sushi to katsu curry, and holds a clean FSA 5 from November 2025. The evidence for anything beyond competence is thin: the last critical assessment on record is a Time Out three-star from 2014, and no chef or technique is documented. That is a fair local dinner if you are in Angel, and it is honest to rank it there until a current review says otherwise.