Cocoro

For my other birthday lunch, we went to Cocoro. They weren’t quite ready for us when we arrived. As our dining companions were running late I started with a sparkling sake which was surprisingly delicious. They have Ridel and Zwizel glasses and encourage us to have some edamame beans while we wait.

The snacks come out in a super cute box and have a mixture of dishes hidden in it. The deep-fried kingfish could do with some salt however is otherwise well rounded. The wagyu has an incredible mix of flavours which I really liked. The Daikon goes incredibly well with the sake, quite complex and nice.

We order an extra course of whitebait for the table to share, it’s a simple and easy dish for us to enjoy.

Because there are a few options to choose from we get a mixture of the courses available from the set menu.

From the sashimi course, I tried some of the salmon and it was to die for!

We, of course, have sake to go with Karaage chicken! The chicken is really good however how can you go wrong with fried chicken.

There is soft classical music playing in the background which I quite like.

The Grilled sweet Saikyo Miso marinated market fish has banana notes which takes me back to South America and is yum.

For my official main course, I had the Angus Beef ‘Tobanyaki’ served on earthenware utensils. It’s cooked just right and I like the theatrical note of the presentation.

We shared all four of the desserts and personally felt they were a bit hit and miss. I really appreciated that they’d written Happy Birthday on my dessert plate, especially since we hadn’t told them it was my birthday!

Overall the Cocoro set lunch option is a nice way to sample their service and have a quick bite. I noticed them replacing the paper napkins we had with cloth napkins when resetting the tables for dinner service. It looks like dinner would be an entirely different experience, which I really don’t think should be the case at a three hat restaurant. Either way I would like to check it out and see if there really is a difference.