Did you know that Sticks’n’Sushi was founded by a Japanese lady called “Keiko” and her Danish-Japanese sons’ Jens and Kim Rahbek Hansen alongside and their brother-in-law Thor Andersen? They opened their first Sticks’n’Sushi in Nansensgade (No. 59) on 22 March 1994 followed by more restaurants in the Greater Copenhagen area and their first London outfit in Wimbledon of March 2012. There’s now seven shops in the capital with outposts in Cambridge and Oxford. This is a sushi enterprise. Inside the Wimbledon venue, a former horse carriage factory is where I’m at first. It’s a dark, stark-styled restaurant effortless in Japanese-Scandinavian swank with moody leather, beams of sunlight seeping through the huge shop front and wavy curtain wall. I admire the menu, by which I mean the actual physicality of it. It’s a narrow paged magazine, set matte finished paper with stunning food photographs, lovely typography and crisp layout – it’s an exemplar in print design – a case in point that print can still be compelling.
Two of my siblings and I go for the “four meal drive” – a set designed for four as the title suggests. It comes with nigiri consisting of salmon, seared and un-seared, shrimp and tuna. Then there’s a selection of maki; ebi hot – a shrimp with spicy sauce, coriander, a sesame pelted roll; the pink Alaska – a salmon, avocado, cream cheese with fish roe that pops beneath the teeth; then spicy tuna with is hit of chilli, miso aioli, masago and katafi; ebi panko is a crisp tempura prawn wrapped in a slow creeping spicy sauce and avocado; hell’s kitchen is tempura shrimp wrapped in tuna and spicy sauce; shake aïoli – a roe pelted, snow pea avocado concoction; and finally the gypsy big – a tightly packed seared fish, avocado, cucumber, chilli roll. The lot is yours for £100 and easily fed the three of us, it’s supposed to be for four, we’re greedy.
We also ordered the inari £2.60 which I love. They’re tofu pouches stewed down with dashi, sugar and soy packed full of rice and trout roe as per the menu which went MIA, instead we got crest.
Sticks’n’sushi Canary Wharf’s USP unlike its siblings is that they sell breakfasts – I read somewhere that it’s another mingle of Danish-Japanese ingredients. I came for lunch again and this branch has been doing their thing since May 2015..
If Wimbledon was dark and stark, Canary Wharf is clean Scandic chic with a slate grey open kitchen. A maze of pipework leftover from the buildings docking heritage dominate the airspace, it’s very now.
We all know what these are don’t we? We squeeze and suck on them until the the restaurant’s calling comes.
We do the “ebi kit”, a three way of hell’s kitchen, ebi panko, and a New York subway, that would be tempura shrimp wrapped in salmon, spicy sauce and garlic on top – yours for £39.
Don’t miss the things on sticks like how I did the first time around as they’re rather good. We get the “robust” where 6 sticks are served on a slate grey slab consisting of chiizu maki, which was three lumps of melting Emmental cheese wrapped with bacon and is skewered on a stick. There’s also intriguing chicken and squid sausage with a glaze of sweet teriyaki sauce and mayonnaise. Beef with miso herb butter came with a good bit of tension in the flesh as did the duck breast in panko and wasabi Caesar sauce. And you can’t beat a bit of chicken teriyaki.
The robust set also comes with broccoli that came with a nice char as it should. That’s good manners in my book.
Verdict:
When did I go? Sept 2017
The damage: Expect to pay £35/45 per head without booze
The good: There are some blasts of goodness to be had here with the tightly packed maki rolls and the nigiri seemed to be good quality judging by the white ribbons of fat from the salmon and blushed pink tuna. The lightly vinegar’d rice served at room temperature was dextrously done too and don’t miss the sticks either as their half the point of the outing.
The bad: It’s good quality, but everything seems very safe – almost utility-like which misses the magic.
Rating: 3/5
Would I go again? Yeah why not
Address: 58 Wimbledon Hill Rd, Wimbledon, London SW19 7PA; 1 Crossrail Pl, London E14 5AR
Web: https://sticksnsushi.com/en
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