A couple of weeks ago, I had lunch at Sake no Hana in Mayfair. Sake no Hana is a restaurant that offers modern Japanese cuisine. Sushi, bento, sake, and other Japanese dishes can be enjoyed, and they have a sushi bar and a bar where cocktails can be ordered. When I visited Sake no Hana, the restaurant was celebrating cherry blossom festival (sakura), which is celebrated in Japan each spring. This festival celebrates the arrival of spring and the custom of hanami, which is essentially a picnic and get-together with friends and family underneath the beautiful blossoms. Seeing the cherry blossoms in Japan is something that I really want to do at some point.
When I arrived, the restaurant entrance was covered in cherry blossoms. These proved to be popular with tourists keen to get their photograph taken as they passed by.
The interior of the restaurant is lined with bamboo to give it a feeling of being in a forest. The green and rippling glass sculpture above the bar aids to this theme and is a beautiful feature. There are large windows facing onto the busy St. James Street, constrasting the calming interior. The restaurant was bright with much natural light shining through.
Floris Cherry Blossom scent was also in the air when I entered the restaurant bar. The scent can be purchased from the Floris, which is a British perfumer. This allows visitors to become immersed into the hanami experience.
To celebrate Sakura, several new and limited edition items were on the menu. I was keen to try some of these.
First up is the Violet Risshun cocktail. The cocktail comes in two parts, and the waitress explained that the first part of the cocktail represented early spring. The second part of the cocktail represents later spring. The first part is a pale yellow-tan colour, and it has a slightly more sour taste. After having two glasses of this, the pinkish-red cocktail is meant to be poured into the larger pale-yellow one to combine into the second cocktail. The early spring was two glasses, and I got two and a half glasses out of the later spring. The later spring had a more floral and sweet taste, taking the edge off the sour.
The cocktails were absolutely delicious. I loved the slight sour taste of the first and the floral 'cherry blossom' taste of the second. The waitress explained to me that the cocktail was only a little sour because a sweetner is used to take the edge off of it. The sweetener is made from a type of leaf from Japan that is crushed. I believe the leaf is called the shiso leaf. The waitress brought one over to me so that i could see it.
Next up came the miso soup. This tasted good and has a lot of flavour. This is the best miso that I have eaten.
My main mean came out in two bento boxes. I had the chicken with ginger, and this came with broccoli and what looked like sesame seeds. The second box contained a selection of vegetarian sushi. Included was avocado and mango and wasabi. The wasabi was so spicy; I'd never known it to be as spicy. I struggled to eat it all; this meal could be shared between two in my opinion.
The chicken had a nice flavour.
For dessert, I had the Sakura Macaron. This is another limited edition item on the menu, and the macaron is cherry and chocolate flavour.
Visitors are being encouraged to take photographs of the cherry blossoms and to post them onto Instagram in order for a chance to win Sakura prizes.
Sakura at Sake no Hana is available until the 20th of June. The restaurant is located in Mayfair on St. James Street. I was able to sit in the bar on a Saturday at noon, and there were plenty of spaces available.
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