First published on 14 Oct 2011. Updated on 18 Oct 2011.
New Californian-Japanese fusion from the team behind The Apartment
So here it is, the long-awaited, much-hyped third vessel from Collective Concepts, the shapeshifting folks behind The Apartment and that gloriously scattershot sushi-deli-cocktail-Asian-Americaneverything venture Food Central. The Geisha is spread over three floors and, even when you don’t factor in their ‘customised in-house scent’ (‘more sexy and girly than the one at The Apartment’, we’re told), it’s probably their most ambitious project to date. Decor comes care of Red Design (as seen at Collective Concept’s other ventures, as well as glo London and The Alchemist), who claim to have channeled a‘surreal high-class Japanese brothel’.
If you’ve been already, it’s no doubt for its mid-week parties at the chichi club and open-air bar on the second and third levels. Everambitious executive chef Mark Baar is hoping the buzz migrates to the first floor for his menu of sushi and Western-spiked Japanese dishes.‘I want it to be on a level with Nobu’, Baar told us earlier this year. ‘Maybe when people sit down at Geisha it won’t be what they expect.’
With this venue for ‘Californian-Japanese fusion’, Baar takes onthe giant in this cuisine – Haiku by Hatsune, which for three years has claimed the laurels as the go-to place for Cali-style sushi in the city. Californian native Baar, and head chef Hatch, from Tokyo, follow a similar playbook: a nine-strong list of inventive, off-kilter maki with madcap titles.
Devotees of Haiku, used to its graffiti-like presentation, big flavours and all-round more-is-more approach, will be most at home with Geisha’s Catalina Island roll (98RMB), a large, sloppy (in a good way), and satisfyingly spicy montage of crunchy prawn tempura, perfectly squared crab, salmon, avocado and modestly applied tangy dashi sauce. Its white rice is coloured with tobiko, which achieves its bright green from being muddled with wasabi.
The excellent Foolish Monkey rolls (88RMB), served ever so slightly warm, with yellowtail, salmon and eel, use a similar method of natural pigmentation. Crispy tensaku (deepfried flour batter, similar in texture to tempura but more brittle), is mixed with beetroot and wasabi to get the bright red-green colours on the rice. Baar knows how to make subtle flavours register: a small thatch of grilled salmon skin, scallion and black and white sesame seeds atop our Eskimo rolls (98RMB) worked well with fatty salmon belly, daikon and the earthy flavoured, deep redcoloured pickled beetroot.
Presentation is artful, if a bit delicate and well behaved for a style so usually full of swagger. The ingredients are clearly high quality, too (rice from Japan, fish from Japan, Europe and China). Everything transcends more than the sum of its parts and, yet, nothing really astonishes – especially considering the prices (notably, a notch higher than Haiku). Still, George Nemec’s impressive, sakeheavy cocktail list (we loved the Kyoto Protocol, 65RMB, with gin, cherry brandy, lime and berry tea giving it a powerful depth of flavour) makes more than enough reason to come back and hit the upstairs bar.
Alexander Barlow