Dinings SW3 Review: Sensational Japanese Cookery in Chelsea
Make no mistake, SW3 is a lovely postcode to wander around on a dark January evening. The gaudy twinkle of lit-up department stores, the secretive streets of neat Knightsbridge terraces, the glittering array of boutique neighbourhood stores with their artfully-arranged window displays; all combine to make for a more genteel, reassuring London experience – one in which all feels right in the world.
Wander down the perma-pretty Walton Street, a stone’s throw from the bombastic grandeur of Harrods, and you’ll come across a true understated gem of the capital’s gastronomic scene. Dinings SW3 launched back in 2017 and weathered the storms of the past few years on the back of an uncompromising commitment to what it does best; playfully exploring the natural meeting point between heartfelt and precise ‘gill to tail’ Japanese cookery with European savoir-faire.
Sheer elegance: the 12-seat sushi counter and dining room, Dinings SW3
Without giving too much away this early in my review, I can confidently say that I fell head-over-heels in love with Dinings SW3’s multitudinous and swoon-worthy offerings. Seriously – it’s a stunner, and I’m going to take no small joy in going through exactly what makes it a must-visit restaurant with enduring and fascinating appeal.
While all too many Japanese (and adjacent ‘pan-Asian’) restaurants in the city shout about their authenticity or lean into maximalist, immersive orientalism, Dinings SW3 presents an altogether more assured and quiet confidence. Here is a restaurant where pristine service, relaxed elegance and – most importantly – utterly sensational food come together in spectacular fashion.
Crispy rice with tuna tartare
The dining room itself, found down a short staircase which leads into a beautifully spacious room topped with a mezzanine floor for private gatherings, is the epitome of comfortable, tasteful Chelsea class. There are none of the design trappings of other restaurants trying too hard to look like a Tokyo dive bar, and there’s (thankfully) no thudding bassline or eye-strainingly low lighting to get in the way of the good times ahead. Instead, natural wood features, artful light fixtures and an oh-so watchable and well-lit open kitchen – complete with sushi bar and ice box to display the freshest catches – cement the notion that this is a restaurant that knows what it’s doing, and requires no additional bells, whistles or distractions.
Frankly, it’s a lovely place to be even before the food starts to arrive.
I was invited to partake in Dining SW3’s omakase offering, allowing the meticulous kitchen team to showcase the restaurant’s big-hitting dishes in a seamless flow of stunning small plates. Proceedings kick off with the first real salvo of that signature self-assuredness; a sharply-dressed young sommelier, instead of rattling off the impressively lengthy wine list or telling me what he thinks I should be ordering, simply asks me what kind of wine I like. I tell him I’m fond of Central European white wines. He nods and returns a few moments later with a stunning Gruner Veltliner. Seamless, unfussy and precise, it’s a small thing, but one that lets me know I’m in great hands.
Aubergine with miso caramel
The first dishes arrive: a pair of delicate ‘tar-tar’ chips topped with a salmon tartare and a yuzu reduction. They’re essentially tacos – albeit ones which have grown up and spent a gap year in the Far East – and they’re fabulous. This is followed by a delicious sesame-rich seaweed salad served with nori sheets (use the nori to transfer generous portions of the stuff from plate to mouth, and repeat with a massive smile on your face), and the restaurant’s beloved ‘crispy rice’ sharing dish: a rustling paper bag filled with deep-fried balls of sticky, crispy rice, served with a bowl of unctuous tuna tartare for dolloping on top before dredging in an aromatic wasabi dipping sauce. It’s an interactive, fun and frivolous take on street food-style dining, and the flavours never shy from the sensational. The more playful opening courses concluded with a lobster steamed bun – nursery-soft pancake-style bread encasing a generous portion of sweet, meaty crustacean. Gorgeous.
Onwards we travel. An aubergine steak – slow roasted and softened to have almost broken down completely – is slathered with a thick miso caramel. It snapped me a little out of my admittedly broad and often all-encompassing comfort zone; it was almost dessert-like, yet in context made perfect sense by offering a break from the salinity and minerality of everything that had come before. Black cod was next, a benchmark dish if there ever was one. I’ve eaten a lot of black cod over the past few years, with standouts served at Terrace Martinhal in Lisbon and Park Chinois on the other side of Mayfair. The black cod at Dinings SW3 took the gold medal with pearlescent, silky flakes cooked to perfection.
Heavenly soft Cornish tuna — who knew?
A trio of nigiri arrives, one of which was topped with a generous slice of – no word of a lie – the softest and most satisfying slab of fatty tuna belly I’ve ever eaten. I had to ask about this piece of fish, and was surprised to hear it was caught in Cornwall. West Country tuna is now apparently a thing; the warming seas have influenced tuna migrations, bringing smaller and more flavourful fish to British shores and allowing Dinings SW3 to level up their sustainable credentials when the season allows — a lot of the restaurant’s fish are caught in British waters. Sushi rolls bring further delights in the form of salmon and avocado combos, spicy tuna and sea bass, each perfectly formed by deft hands just a few feet away.
My dining companion and I bring proceedings to a close with a pair of desserts – a yuzu cheesecake with a mandarin and shiso insert, and a matcha and jasmine dorayaki – both veritable flavour bombs of fresh, sweet and (thankfully) light taste sensations. We sat back in our chairs, exchanging a knowing glance that we’d just encountered something really rather special indeed.
Indeed, Dinings SW3 achieves what so many restaurants reach for but rarely succeed in; feeling all at once like a well-kept secret, a voyage of discovery and a night at the theatre. I couldn’t possibly recommend it more.
