Telephone: 020-7580 6464
Address: 37 Charlotte Street, London W1
Rating: 12/20
God knows, I went with the best of intentions. I had an open mind. I meant to be generous and understanding. I smiled at the charming, but haphazard service - which is more than Arabella (Weir - yes, that's her real name) managed, she's far fiercer than me. It's too early to tell, I told myself, when the wrong water was brought, the wine we wanted turned out not to be available. And then our glasses were filled and refilled in nervous compensation with its substitute. And then there were difficulties in comprehension, the wrong dish for the wrong person, a sudden rush of dishes and then a long pause; and so on. Give them the benefit of the doubt, I said, the place has only been open a couple of weeks. Arabella clicked her teeth and frowned a queenly frown.
What about the decor? she said. What about it? I said. Handsome post-Star Wars industrial above, I said, peering at the network of pipes and air-con ducts and curious bits of padded cladding, all painted creamy white. More Blake's 7 than Star Wars, she said, dredging up an ancient TV series set in a space station of droll naffness. It's all smooth enough at ground level, though, I said. Smooth like a canteen, said Arabella. A Norman Foster canteen, I said. Norman Wisdom canteen, she said. Come on, I said, at least the food isn't Norman Wisdom.
Roka, the restaurant in which we sat, is the creation of Rainer Becker, one of the moving spirits behind Zuma, the phenomenally successful phenomenon that took some of the precepts of sushi and sashimi and moulded them to the tastes of Londoners who like food that puts prettiness before taste and for whom "healthiness" is in place of godliness. I did not have a happy experience at Zuma. I cannot recall the slimy gobbets of Arctic-chilly raw sea urchin roe without a shudder.
At Roka, Mr Becker has followed his Japanese muse still further, into the thickets of more specialised cooking techniques. There's tempura, sashimi and maki, with which I am familiar, but also kushiage, chu-maki robabata yasai, and robata niku, with which I am not. Under the heading "robata yaki", the menu explains that "many years ago fishermen from coastal villages would cook their catch over the open flame and share the delights with others by passing the food on from boat to boat. "Robata" translates into "cooking with open flames". And there, by golly, are the fishermen - no, disappointingly, chefs - in the middle of the room for all to see, cooking away over the open flames.
For us they cooked ebi no tempura, kuruma-ebi, unagi temaki zushi, maguro no tataki, ko nasu, uzura no miso zuke, kani no kama meshi. I am all for exploring far distant corners of the culinary galaxy, particularly from the comfort of a restaurant table in my own back yard, even more particularly when the translations have, for me, the refined allure of the poems of Basho.
Take ebi ni tempura. That becomes "crispy rock shrimp with prickly ash and lime". What fair-minded person could resist that "prickly ash", not to mention the "crispy rock?". Or uzura no miso zuke, which becomes quail marinated in plum wine and red miso. Doesn't that plum wine just sing out to you? Well, it did to me. And as for kani no kama meshi, or rice hot pot with king crab, and wasabi tobiko as we knew it to be (sorry, sir, what's tobiko? I still don't know), I was halfway to paradise.
Sadly, I never got more than halfway, or even quarter way, to be truthful. The lure of the menu is all very well, singing a siren song to the imagination, but the food should then, in my view, deliver on those promises of gustatory bliss. And the trouble is that the dishes at Roka were a triumph of fashionability over flavour. It's Japanese lite.
To be fair, ko nasu - egg plant in mirin, ginger and soy - was beautiful in most senses of the word: lithe, sloppy, floppy, but punchy with the flavourings. And the quail dish lived up to its promise, more or less, being sticky, nicely burnt and mildly meaty in the way that quail is.
But as for the rest, I am not sure that I can call to mind a single flavour. That prickly ash? A busted flush. The rock shrimp? A ghost of a ghost of flavour. Kuruma-ebi (tiger prawn tempura)? If only the shellfish had had a tithe of the flavour of the batter, but it didn't. Unagi temaki zushi (hand-rolled cone with eel teriyaki, avocado, shiso and sansho pepper) looked like the Camberwell carrot in Withnail & I, but turned out to be a case of the bland leading the bland.
And so on. I trust you get the picture. Even my pudding of banana green tea baked cream and tonka bean ice cream, which would have made more sense if it had been written as banana, green tea baked cream, and tonka bean ice cream, did not relieve the impression that Roka is to all intents and purposes, a taste-free zone.
Which probably means that it perfectly represents the contemporary gastro-zeitgeist, aspirations and fulfilment. It isn't even that expensive by London standards - £71.30 for food. But it's the last time I let good intentions get the better of me.
· Open Monday-Saturday, 12 noon-2.30pm; 5.30-11pm. Sunday, 5.30-10.30pm.
Wheelchair access (no WC)
