Celebrating Hinamatsuri Day at a Japanese Restaurant in London – Roketsu Review
In Japan, on the 3rd of March people celebrate hinamatsuri. For those of you who don’t know, hinamatsuri is a holiday in Japan that celebrates girls. Traditionally, families with daughters display ornamental dolls in the home. Depending on the budget, these displays can range from modest to incredibly extravagant, and they depict scenes of a wedding. The dolls are dressed in Heian-period clothes, with the Emperor and Empress taking centre stage.
When I was younger, my mother used to take these dolls out and display them around the end of February, and I used to love playing with the Empress’ headpiece. Families usually put away the dolls on the 4th of March, as according to superstitious, leaving the dolls out for too long can delay a daughter’s wedding! Other traditions for hinamatsuri include eating chirashi sushi and eating clam (hamaguri) soup.
This year for Hinamatsuri, we are in London, and we thought we’d celebrate this ladies’ day by going to Roketsu in Marble Arch. Roketsu is a new Japanese kaiseki restaurant founded by the famous chef, Daisuke Hayashi. Roketsu is only open for dinner, and there’s a set menu (currently £190 per person) that features 10 courses.
The menu changes every month, as the restaurant uses the best ingredients according to the season, and this March, the theme was hinamatsuri! Chef Hayashi’s flawless credentials and the restaurant’s stellar reviews were enough to convince us to go brave the wet London weather for this culinary treat!
Roketsu Restaurant
12 New Quebec St, London W1H 7RW
First of all, the interior of Roketsu is beautiful. All the materials are from Kyoto, and they go workers from Kyoto to build the interior. It really feels and smells like you’re in Japan inside these walls. As it is a kaiseki restaurant, it’s not a large space, but the quiet intimacy fits the decor and the philosophy of Japanese food well. The drinks menu is compromised of a large array of Japanese sake, both hot and cold.
The attendants were also very thorough, and explained the concept of Roketsu to all six diners, and also told us about this month’s theme, hinamatsuri, with accompanying pictures. This diligent prologue was great, and only enhances the excitement of what’s to come…
Now, to the food. The food was absolutely sublime! As the menu changes every month, I can’t say for certain what you’ll get, but in March 2022, we were served some magnificent tuna sashimi, beautiful hamaguri soup, delicious chirashi sushi and a nice strawberry icecream and soup for dessert! Those were some of the highlights, but check out our photos below, to see what else the chef cooked up.
I rate Roketsu a 10/10. The service, the decor and the taste were all fantastic and I consider myself very lucky to have been able to visit Roketsu this hinamatsuri!
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