In the heart of Shoreditch, you’ll find Apothecary East, a stunning restaurant and bar serving Japanese-inspired sharing dishes – a spot that is much loved by Secret London. Created by head chef Luca Bernardini in collaboration with guest chef Masashi Noguchi who trained in Tokyo and Osaka before working in London, Apothecary East’s new omakase summer menu contains unsurprisingly nothing short of delicious dishes that encompass the restaurant’s amazing food rep and very much all of our praise once again.
Housed in an iconic building, whose name is a nod to its history, the restaurant has an industrial feel complimented by glass ceilings and indoor greenery, creating a Tokyo vibe meshed together with Shoreditch’s edgy persona. Izakaya-inspired, the restaurant and bar is conceived and curated by James Williams and Rohit Chugh, both of whom share a love for Tokyo’s culture. The term ‘izakaya’ means an informal Japanese bar, where drinks are served alongside small plates in a relaxed service much different from other Japanese styles of eating. Most importantly, sharing is encouraged.
The six course summer omakase menu showcases innovative dishes paired with delicious cocktails. To start with, we ordered the Aperitif Roku gin & tonic Matcha pisco sour, combining all of your matcha and Peruvian pisco sour dreams in a glass alongside the Renkon lotus root crisps with tomato miso which we happily scoffed down in minutes.
Our first course was Maki Sea bass, a plate of 6 sushi-rolls, perfect to coat your stomach and definitely making us hungry for more. Our second course was the Salmon tartare on a gyoza skin crisp, which was absolutely delicious, packed incredibly fresh aromatics and flavour of ginger and shallots. The crunch of the gyoza crisp and the softness of the Salmon tartare made for a lovely little hard shell Japanese taco.
These next two dishes were hands down the highlight of the menu, personally. Tsukune ground chicken thigh in sesame oil teriyaki and grated daikon, a skewer with minced chicken doused in flavours of sesame and teriyaki which melts in your mouth immediately. Sooo incredibly soft, we could have had about ten more. Luckily, we didn’t, as the next course required some space. Salmon chazuke which consisted of seared salmon on a bed of sushi rice served alongside a flavourful broth with hints of barley miso sake served alongside a beautiful array of condiments of katsuobushi dashi and bubu arare. It was heaven in a bowl and so incredibly flavourful – each element bought something different and it was entirely up to us how we wanted to build our bowls with the different condiments. Often in tasting menus, we come with the presumption that we will be leaving hungry but not in this case, by then, we were pretty full and satisfied, anything that came after was most definitely a treat.
Last but not the least, we were served our fifth course, Seared Wagyu bavette Chilean bavette alongside smoked aubergine and chestnut mushrooms. It’s only right to complete a Japanese meal with Waygu, right? We thought so too. The seared Wagyu was tender and tasted incredible with the smoked aubergine and chestnut mushrooms but it’s safe to say, we were still reeling over the last two courses.
In a lovely sendoff, we were served Mochi for desert – untraditionally and away from the menu a sticky toffee pudding which they provided for my partner’s birthday, which was also so very good and most definitely left us in a warm and cozy food coma by then.
For it’s value, the summer omakase menu exceeded my expectations in every way. Each course thoughtfully curated with a different flavour profile, just the right quantity, paired with deliciously concocted cocktails and most importantly the incredible service, made for an amazing evening and left us feeling incredibly satisfied. It’s safe to say that Apothecary East continues to remain a favourite of Secret London.
The menu will be available until the end of July, you can make bookings here.