• Japanese• White City
Endo at the Rotunda is located on the 8th floor of the former BBC building in White City. Expect a reverential atmosphere at this counter-dining restaurant that sits less than 20 people around a wooden L-shaped bar.
Chef-patron Endo Kazutoshi is a third-generation sushi master and was the former group executive chef at Zuma before he opened his solo venture at the Rotunda in 2019. He quickly won a Michelin star for his new omakase (“the chef’s selection”) restaurant, offering one of the best Japanese fine-dining cuisines in town.
The food here is all about attention to detail. The sushi rice - and even the water it’s cooked in - is sourced from his hometown in the Yamagata Prefecture in Japan. The menu is 20 courses long, from snacks to top-end sushi and sashimi, so go with someone as keen as you to discover what Japanese fine dining at the top echelon is like.
You’ll sit at long L-shaped counter and then wait for a meal that’s pure theatre.
This hand-to-hand eating style is encouraged. And it’s a far more enjoyable high-end restaurant instruction than learning a turnip’s genealogy, or curtsying to a slice of ham.
The place has a stripped-back, classically Japanese aesthetic, with pale wood counters gazed down upon by a huge, impressive lighting installation, which features bulbs suspended between huge, billowing layers of thin white paper that seem to ripple out across the ceiling – much like the clouds you’re figuratively sitting in.
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