A friendly, independently run sushi bar and Japanese bistro, in a striking setting at the base of a new office building, just north of Broadgate.
It’s almost impossible to overstate the change that’s come over the City in the past quarter-century. How did those of us who worked there in those far-off days survive with hardly any shopping and hardly anywhere to eat?
Nowadays, of course, the City is full of shiny new ‘developments’; you can’t have a development without ‘retail’; and wherever you have retail nowadays, the money men say you have to have ‘grazing’ too.
In consequence, the previous aversion to accepting the lease covenants of smaller operators seems to be being relaxed. In the old days, for example, you’d never have found the landlord of a big City office building willing, as here, to lease out space to a small, independent operator such as Tsuru, which has just one existing outlet on the South Bank.
The new operation nods to both Big Money and small entrepreneurship. On the one hand, the setting is as Manhattanite as you’ll find in London – indeed, the semi-al fresco tables are as urban as anything in town. On the other hand, however, there’s a human feel to the service and the presentation of the cuisine which is rather endearing.
We enjoyed both our sushi – presented as a more home-made version in the style you find at Pret – and our scallop curry with copious rice. Presumably the latter’s presentation, a symphony in brown, was authentic. Overall, however, it is the personable style of the operation and the reasonable prices, which – if we worked locally – would be likely to draw us back.
