Alternative Name: 安芸
Rating: 2/5
Address
182 Gray's Inn Road,
WC1X 8EW
Type of Place:
Aki is an izakaya through and through. Why would you come here? You'd be a salaryman at one of the local Japanese companies and you'd come here after work to drink and talk endlessly about the economy.
There's also a scattering of lost white people who should really have known better.
Food:
Ok, firstly: Aki is one of those places that has a cut-down menu for non-Japanese speakers and, separately, real food for Japanese speakers. I hate that. I don't really know why, but it just gets on my nerves.
Secondly, the food isn't very good. It's izakaya food, you're supposed to eat it while drinking, but that's no excuse at all -- even London is full of izakayas doing better food than this.
I don't mean it's inedible -- far from it. But it's lazy, anaemic, and put to shame by the more recent, more competitive Soho places.
Shouga-yaki was basically four bits of bacon with ginger rubbed on them. Even the Japan Center can do a proper shouga-yaki, for heaven's sake! And for this, they want 7.50 GBP -- and you don't get rice, no, you pay extra for a little bowl of rice.
Unagi-don was five inches of skinny eel lying self-consciously on slightly soggy rice. Nothing else. I don't even know how they found an eel that skinny. Maybe it eats at Aki.
Normally I wouldn't waste so much time whining about food; I'd just ignore the place. But Aki, I can't help thinking, could do SO much better if it bothered.
Atmosphere:
Izakaya style atmosphere. Aki has it in spades -- strips of paper on the walls, an imposing palisade of sake bottles, paper lanterns and small, flimsy, uncomfortable chairs -- Aki looks exactly like a slightly run-down and over-lit izakaya anywhere in Japan.
I'm giving it two stars instead of one, because at least it's a real Japanese izakaya not aimed at loud English people.
But the fact is, this izakaya is selling food for twice the going rate and not really bothering to make it taste nice either.
Service:
Service was ok. They didn't project the impression of giving a good gosh damn, but then they didn't stab me in the face either. Staff are all Japanese but give the impression of being a bit dissatisfied with their lives.
Unique Point:
You wouldn't think it now, but Aki was quite an icon in it's day and it's still a bit of an institution if you work at a Japanese company in the area. Before there were Japanese restaurants filling Soho, there were Japanese restaurants like Aki and Noto that catered for suit-wearing Japanese company men stranded in London.
Of course, having a captive audience like this has unfortunately allowed Aki to get a bit lazy, while keeping prices remarkably high.
Aki does have one remaining selling point, though -- a comprehensive and frequently-updated array of sake. If you really like sake, you'll probably do better here than in Soho.
ok