Jin Kichi

Simple is beautiful. The Japanese way of doing things.

 A friend of mine visited Japan few years back told me that he felt peckish and  had gone into a fruit  shop to buy an apple. He told me that the young Japanese shop assistant had wrapped this solitary apple in such a beautiful way that it was like a piece of art. He said it was almost a shame to unwrap it to eat. He was happy to just admire it.

The Japanese have the highest life expectancy in the world. Bearing in mind that their land has suffered the radiation consequences of two nuclear bombs, I've always wondered what their life expectancy would be if their land and seas were radiation free.

But obviously their  diet is a big player in their life expectancy. If we look closer we note that the Japanese typically eat five times more cruciferous vegetables than we do in the West and  will eat about 100 varieties of food per week compared to just 30 in the average British diet. Food for thought me thinks. Well, eager to redress my deficit, such superfoods as green tea, tofu, seaweed and shitake mushrooms all deliciously came my way by virtue of a  recent visit to Jin Kichi in Hampstead, north London.



Some say that we eat first with our eyes and on that note I can say  Jin Kichi, was testament to that theory. The place is small but undeniably cute. The obvious clue that the food is top notch is the ever present  Japanese clientele who are tightly seated around the focal point of the place: the chef and his tiny tiny grill...  with an effortless and  methodical approach to manning this tiniest of  grills, what comes off is truely great. But it  takes time.

There is one main or break issue for vegetarians though. The grill is used to prepare meat, fish and any of the vegetarian options from the grill menu. This for me was not a deal breaker but I know that for some this would be a  big enough problem to give the grill a miss. Personally, I have always cynically  doubted that restaurants always segregate their utensils for vegetarians or those of other non pork eating faiths... I'm sure all vegetarians have had a sandwich which was cut with a knife that 5 minutes previous was slicing it's way through a piece of meat. So for me it's a case of what goes on in the kitchen stays in the kitchen.

There are of course other options that are prepared from the kitchen below. Platters of sushi and sashimi seem to be expertly prepared down there and the place does have an aroma of fish and sea food when entering. But I was here to hunt down the vegetarian options. Not many but I found a cool little selection on the menu and I was not disappointed. Fabulously simple spinach and shitake mushrooms were amazing. Simple but deliciously silky. The tofu or potato croquettes were equally great.

On a previous visit I'd had the best onion ever. Sounds crazy. Who would order an onion?  but only the Japanese could skewer an onion and turn it into a dish in its own right. Grilled to perfection and bathed in a wonderful sauce this onion was heaven on a stick. Equally good were the shitake mushrooms skewers. Again so simple yet superb. All this was washed down with top quality green tea.

The pricing is very reasonable. This is no place to stuff your face. It is more about sampling delicate cuisine that leaves your mouth and not your belly in seventh heaven. You will delight your   palette not  stuff your stomach. There is a joy sometimes to leave a restaurant with that 'light' feeling.

For such a buzzy place the service was very good.  Japanese etiquette is a big deal so unsurprisingly the staff were quickly on hand and even the griddle chef took time to thank customers on their way out. Nice unassuming touches like this for me sets Japanese etiquette on another level.




The place gets busy and having made it to a recent Sunday Times top 100 then booking at Jin Kichi is a must. This is no place to come en masse with friends or family. It's too small for that. Neither would I recommend this as a place to bring a date as it can be too crowded at times.  Simply it's just  a great place to have an authentic experience of Japanese food, by yourself or with a friend, before hitting  Hampstead for a bit of shopping.



73 Heath Street,
Hampstead
NW3 6UG
tel: 0207 794 6158      www.jinkichi.com