Harajuku Kitchen

Popular Bruntsfield spot for locals seeking a taste of Japan.

The 2018/19 edition of The List's Eating & Drinking Guide is out now – only £7.95 (+p&p).

Compared to the crazed street life and teen culture of Tokyo’s Harajuku district, Bruntsfield may seem a little restrained and grown-up. But banish such thoughts as you enter Harajuku Kitchen where the menu offers a taste of Japan, right down to the choice of sake, local beers and Japanese plum wine. Among starters there are edamame (soy beans in the pod), tonkatsu – a bread-crumbed pork cutlet in a miso sesame sauce, and a toothsomely crunchy (though tiny) kaiso seaweed salad. As you wait – and service can be slow – a Sumo wrestler smiles down from a cartoon mural in the compact, high-ceilinged restaurant. For mains there is sashimi and all manner of sushi to indulge in, from hosomaki to larger futomaki rolls and bara chirashi – a bowl of tangy sushi rice scattered with seafood. A a seaweed-wrapped salmon and avocado temaki tastes slightly bland next to the tempura aubergine curry which is Japanese soul food at its best.