INÉ Hampstead. Sumptuous Omakase Dining At Its Finest.

Andy Mossack reviews the Omakase 17-course menu at INÉ Hampstead.

Having a Mayfair Michelin-starred older sister in the family might well have sent this younger sibling cowering into a nearby Hampstead nook and cranny. Yet remarkably, it seems they were pretty laid back about it. As Chef Lee told me as I was sitting at his Omakase countertop “TAKU spends a lot of time making the plates look pretty, while here we just let our beautiful fresh sushi do the talking.”

Fair enough.

Omakase translates as “I leave it up to you” dining; essentially a sushi tasting menu of small plates delivered directly by the chef to diners perched around the chef’s table. It is considered to be the finest hand-picked selection of that day’s ingredients.

At INÉ Hampstead the Omakase menu consists of 17 courses. And this is not a typo. Admittedly, these 17 dishes are small plates with, in most cases, one beautifully crafted freshly prepared morsel, delicately placed in the middle of each.

But what a morsel.

I have to admit a slight intimidation as Chef Lee watched me taste each plate. But his knowing grin of satisfaction was the chef’s version of the waiter informing you the menu choice was excellent. You felt really good about it.

INÉ Hampstead at first glance was not what I expected. After all, with a storied Mayfair sibling you might be anticipating a touch of glitz and glamour. But instead, this was quite the opposite. Deliberately understated, perhaps an homage to Hampstead’s village-like vibe, quite minimalist and clean with plenty of pale wood on show.

The chef’s counter Omakase takes pride of place at the front with the main dining room behind featuring two lines of tables. Upstairs an intimate sake lounge offers a place to hang out and try different types of sake and from time-to-time INÉ Hampstead offers sake masterclasses. It’s also a mini art gallery, with a few pieces from contemporary artists adorning the walls.

There is a Japanese à la carte menu available in the main dining room, but I was there to taste the full Omakase experience (£130pp) together with the 6 drinks wine pairing (£60 but you can take the 4-drink pairing for £40)

The countertop takes 8 diners but as we were slightly early, we had it to ourselves for a while. This of course meant we had the full attention of chef Lee who was keen to get going and insisted we start right away.

A mussel soup was on its way but before that a flute of Champagne Delamotte Brut NV materialised in front of me. “To counter the salt of the mussel and fattiness of the tuna” whispered the sommelier. And just like that the soup was handed over together with a belly of toro tuna with caviar dish.

Japanese food is notoriously tricky to pair to (which is why three of my six drinks were sakes) but the champers worked for me with these two starters. A cascade of flavours assaulted my taste buds and we’d only just kicked off.

Plates were whisked away and another took its place. This time turbot with seaweed and tuna. Then another, a startling mackerel with yuzu bursting with citrus. This came paired with a Gala Welsch Riesling Hermes 2023 from the Czech Republic, another belter pairing.

On to nigiris now.

A delightful sea bass nigiri with a thick black garlic sauce and mushrooms was soon triumphed by sensational yellowtail nigiri with rice and freshly shredded ginger tasting even better paired with a Black Dragon sake from Fukui.

By now our fellow diners had turned up and were obviously keen to see how we were getting on. “Famously” I mumbled as I chewed on a turbot nigri.

A brief respite from nigri came with a delightfully fried tempura octopus that was paired with a rare Jewel Brocade Dewazakura Omachi Ginjo sake. It tasted quite unlike any sake I had previously. They told me it was the famous Omachi rice that did it.

More nigris followed in short order: salmon with sake, sea trout, scallop with yuzu, and finally tuna with lemon. Then probably the best one – a tuna temaki hand rolled with seaweed. It was like a Japanese fajita if that is not too offensive to Japanese cuisine. Somewhere along this particular road I downed my last sake – a Silver Mountain Tedorigawa Yamahai Junmai from Ishikawa.

We were getting into the final stretch now with a palate cleansing somen noodle soup before tucking into an ice-cream and green bean sandwich and a citrus yuzu sparkling drink.

It was an epic culinary journey, and chef Lee gave me another knowing look as if to say I told you so.

INÉ Hampstead is a glorious example of bridging that price gap between casual sushi and the Michelin starred Omakase fine dining of TAKU. It is a much more accessible option to foodies even at £130 for 17 courses, when you consider TAKU is £380 for 22 dishes and another £320 for the wine pairing.

If you’re looking to sample some exquisite boat fresh sushi and watch the culinary magicians close up without any formal hullabaloo, INÉ Hampstead Omakase is your destination. Period.

All food images (C) Andy Mossack