
Yen is a huge, upmarket Japanese restaurant on the Strand. Not huge in the way that your estate agent said your flat had ‘huge storage potential’, it’s actually massive. There’s an upper mezzanine with a cocktail bar, outdoor seating, a big open kitchen, a sushi bar, a soba room, a private dining room, as well as the main restaurant with plenty of tables and banquette seating. It specialises in handmade soba but there’s also plenty of sashimi, sushi, tempura, cold starters, bento boxes, and rice dishes to choose from too. Yen is perfect for impressing over business dinners, a grown-up birthday, or having your first experience with a Japanese toto toilet. Yes, we tried it. And yes, it’s glorious, but the hot soba with duck and the yellowtail sashimi are even better.
