Evernight — Restaurant in London

Had an unforgettable birthday dinner here back in June.

Ambience and seating was very comfortable. We sat at the bar table at the chef’s table, which let us watch most of the dishes being assembled.

Service was very friendly and welcoming. Servers were very open to giving recommendations and happily clarified aspects of dishes we were unclear about.

Food:

Fried Potato Cake: The potato was fried super duper crispy while still having a soft and fluffy inside, probably the best aspect of this dish. However the cake was topped with a hefty amount of kewpie mayo and trout roe, which we thought tasted a bit overkill—very savoury and fatty mouthfeel which weren’t able to be balanced out with the spring onion garnish.

Yellowtail and Cherrystone Clam Sashimi: Yellowtail was served plain with an acidic rhubarb ponzu dipping sauce. Not much to elaborate on here but the fish was very fresh and fatty which contrasted well with the sauce. The clams were marinated in a soy-like marinade, texture was very creamy. Very simple but well executed dish.

Egg and Soy Tofu, White Asparagus: This dish made use of the seasonal ingredient at the time which was asparagus, which was very buttery and earthy. Below the asparagus sat two different types of tofu, one blob of egg and one blob of soy. Both were slightly different while enjoyable in their texture and flavour. The tofus were cold which threw us off a little, but also helped make this a very refreshing dish. They were then topped with a soy-based sauce as well as black garlic, which brought a lot of umami. A very yummy and refreshing dish.

Devon Crab, Aguachile, Dashi Jelly: Probably our second-favourite dish of the night. Crab meat was immensely flavourful and sweet. Dashi jelly brought lots of umami and savouriness while providing an interesting texture. Shiso and nori aguachile brought these herby, almost spicy, and acidic notes to the dish. This is all topped with some kind of roasted nut/seed which adds a nixe earthiness to the dish. Would come back here just for this dish—wonderfully thought out and executed with each ingredient being laid out in layers, almost like a fancy crab cake.

Turbot, White Asparagus: Probably our most favourite dish of the night. Turbot was, I believe, poached (or maybe steamed?) which gave it a wonderfully smooth and moist mouthfeel, really perfectly-cooked and also perfectly seasoned. The turbot was then sitting in the most amazing and creamy white asparagus sauce, which had a nuttiness to it. The turbot is then topped with green almonds and elderflowers. Elderflowers didn’t do much for me personally, but the green almonds gave the dish a much needed crunch and bite. Best dish ever at evernight!!

Yuzu Sake Sorbet: Very clean tasting sorbet, sake and yuzu both very prominent and acidic, which is doubled on with a mandarin compote/jam. Acidity in this case wasn’t too much as it was a hot summer day. Well-executed but nothing mind blowing.

Creme Caramel: Caramel had lots of whiskey which gave a nice kick and additional depth. Nori was a super unexpected but also addition which added an ever-so-slight savoury note. Topped with a whipped cream which was so good as well as biscuit crumbs (?) which helped with additional crunch. Definitely our preferred dessert of the two.

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As a side note, plating for every dish was top notch, but the plates and tableware themselves were also very nice and sleek. The Taiwanese lady chef we were sat in front of was also pleasure to talk to.

Regarding the price, we ordered pretty much half of the whole menu which came up to a ~£120 tab. Wouldn’t say it’s amazing value but it wasn’t too extreme either.

I can definitely see myself revisiting here due to the constantly changing seasonal menu, and of course, the great food,...

The food was good, but everything else that was done to justify the high price point was subpar. We paid £270 for two (with a bottle of wine and two drinks), which is actually more expensive than lunch with wine at Maison Sota in Paris.

Service, atmosphere, and general vibe gave off mixed signals from the minute I walked into the restaurant. I was looking forward to enjoying the food but ended up spending the whole time figuring out why things were so… weird?

I could tell everyone, even service staff, was working very hard. They offered to take my coat on entry, which is a positive but on hindsight was an odd gesture:

The toilets did not smell pleasant at 6pm when the place had just opened. They don’t do lunch service.

Glassware was not polished and had lip marks from previous usage. It would be fine at other restaurants, but this price point…

We were brought a bottle of wine that was completely different from what we actually ordered.

Since this was an ‘izakaya’, we asked for sake or shochu recommendations, but the waiter said he was more of a whisky guy. OK, cool. He forgot to bring us our whisky anyway and had to be reminded.

Service made no attempt to rectify the above two errors.

The chef had trouble reciting the ingredients of the dish we watched him make a minute ago.

Counter seating is not what it is hyped up to be. Nothing much happens.

The music. Why is the playlist full of trendy meme tunes taken straight out of Tiktok/Instagram at a place like this?

To iterate, I genuinely enjoyed some dishes but more training and finessing are needed for this place to really shine. The details matter a lot if customers are paying...

We were a bit disappointed as obviously it’s very beautiful and the quality and elegance seems there. But the menu was obscure so we went in the day before and told them we were vegetarians to ask if they’d be able to accommodate us, or if it was worth it as it’s very expensive. They said there were many dishes they could adjust to make vegetarian so we booked a Friday and came back. On Friday the restaurant was busy, our service was really poor and got most things wrong. We ordered the three recommended vegetarian dishes and two small glasses of wine. The dishes were all just starters (Tempura, A mushroom dish made with a tomato paste, and three small pieces of aubergine made as karage, we also ordered the house pickles for 3.5pounds) they were very very small dishes and we were still super hungry afterwards, they also lacked flavour as I’m sure their fish dishes might have had more of. The bill came to 70+ pounds. We were pretty shocked and put off especially as we didn’t even had a single main and no adjustments were made for us not eating the fish. We won’t be going back, sadly as it’s decorated beautifully and is a cool concept. I should also note that the tempura dish was described to us as a stir fry which it was obviously not. And when we first arrived there was only one other couple there and they sat us right next to them which was a...