Aki London Review: The Best Sake Tasting in London

Worth it, and the hangover I was braced for never arrived. The Dassai x Aki sake tasting was five courses, five sakes and one of the best desserts I have eaten this year, held back only by portions that left me wanting a second dinner.

Quick answer: the best sake tasting in London I have been to is the Dassai x Aki pairing dinner at Aki London on Cavendish Square, a five course menu matched glass by glass with Dassai sakes and hosted by Dassai's own brand ambassador, at £110 per person.

• Where: Aki London, 1 Cavendish Square, Marylebone, W1G 0LA. Nearest station Oxford Circus.
• Visited: September 2026, on a Friday night.
• Price paid: £110 per person for the Dassai x Aki sake pairing dinner.
• Best for: people who think they do not like sake, date nights, anyone with a Japan trip coming up.
• Booking: this was a one off ticketed event, not a walk in. See below for how to catch the next one.
• Hosted or self funded: self funded. I paid for my own ticket.
• Prices correct at time of visit.

Aki sits in a Grade II listed former bank on Cavendish Square, and the dining room is the old banking hall. Coats taken, greeted properly at the door, walked through. It is a genuinely beautiful room and it does not need to try.

Then the seating. They wanted to put us on the left hand side, one on the banquette and one on a chair, which is the classic restaurant stitch up where one of you spends the evening looking at the back of someone's head. Olga turned to me and asked for the good seat, as she always does. Last time I said yes. This time I said no, because fair is fair. We both laughed, she looked at me, and she said fine, let us get a better table. Love that for her. We ended up in the middle of a row in something that felt like a private booth, both pulling the table towards us, giggling, before I realised we were at the end of the aisle and pushed the sofa seat in properly. Everyone happy.

A glass of champagne arrived that we had not ordered and were not charged for. Antonio may have had something to do with that.

Five sakes, all from Dassai, each poured against a course.

The opener was Dassai 45 Nigori Sparkling, cloudy, cold and very drinkable, which is a dangerous combination at the start of a night. Then Dassai 23. Then Dassai 39 with the fish, Dassai Future with Farmers with the duck, and Dassai Umeshu with dessert.

Here is the bit that actually stuck with me. The numbers are not vintages, they are how much of the rice grain is left after polishing. Dassai 45 is Yamada Nishiki rice polished down to 45 per cent. Dassai 23 is the same rice polished to 23 per cent, so 77 per cent of each grain has been ground away before brewing even starts. You can taste the difference between the two in the same sitting, which is the entire point of a tasting and something you will never work out from a single cup at the end of a meal.

At one stage Olga and I had three different glasses in front of us at once, because Antonio kept topping us up faster than we could drink. No complaints filed.

The menu was set, so this is less what to order and more what you get.

Blue fin tuna tartare with nuka pickle, oscietra caviar, puffed brown rice and 30 year old soy. Frankly amazing. I did not know that rice crispies, caviar and tuna was a thing. It is now a thing.

Omakase vegetable tempura with daikon oroshi and smoked tentsu. Japanese mushrooms, sweet potato, asparagus and carrot. Light, properly fried, not a scrap of grease.

Duck breast with apricot sancho pepper. Rich, exactly as you want duck to be, with little segments of citrus cutting through it. The pairing with Dassai Future with Farmers was the one where I understood what they were doing with the matching.

Dark chocolate mousse with banana and soy cream ice cream, poured against the Dassai Umeshu. One of the most delicious desserts I have ever had, and I am not a dessert person.

Now the criticism, because this is the honest part. This night was about the sake, and the food portions were sized accordingly. I would have liked more of it. Possibly that is the sake talking, but I left wanting a bowl of noodles, and at £110 a head I think a sixth savoury plate would have landed well.

Antonio Palmarini is a certified sommelier and the reason Olga has been quietly obsessed with this sake list. He is on Instagram as @palmavini_wine_doctor and he is worth a follow even if sake is not your thing yet.

Leo is Leopoldo Puzielli, Dassai's International Brand Advocacy Manager, and he travelled in from Tokyo to pour. Italian, lives in Tokyo, married to a Japanese wife he met working in hospitality in Dubai twenty years ago, which he tells beautifully and without a hint of performance. He came back to the table after every single pour to ask what we thought. Two days in London, then Milan, then Rome, then home for his son's birthday.

You can see immediately why he does this job. Storytelling, charm, and actual knowledge, in that order. If the Dassai dinner comes back to London and Leo is hosting it, that alone is worth the ticket.

Yes, and I say that as someone who adds up the bill afterwards. Five premium sakes poured generously and topped up freely, five courses, a complimentary glass of champagne and a Dassai representative working the room all night. For context, a single cocktail downstairs in Aki's vault bar is £18, so four drinks and a starter would get you most of the way there with none of the education.

Where it does not stack up is as dinner. Go in treating £110 as the price of a sake masterclass that happens to feed you, not as the price of a five course meal that happens to pour you a drink, and you will be delighted.

Antonio and Leo both promised us we would not have one. Reader, I am sensitive to wine. If I had drunk that volume of wine on a Friday I would have written off Saturday entirely and most of Sunday. I woke up hardly hungover at all and noticeably fresher than the amount of alcohol consumed had any right to allow. Make of that what you will, but it was the single most surprising thing about the night.

Be clear on this one: the Dassai dinner was a one off, and it is not on Aki's What's On page now. There is no booking link to send you to.

What you can do is get on the Aki London newsletter at akilondon.com, because these tickets go to the list before they go anywhere else, and keep an eye on the What's On page, which is where the restaurant posts its events. Follow Antonio too, since he is usually the first sign something is being poured.

If you cannot wait, Aki Uncorked serves rare and vintage bottles by the glass, and the sake list is available on a normal booking. It is not the same as being talked through five expressions of the same rice by the people who make it, but it is a start.

Insider tips: take the better table and ask for it at the door rather than settling for the banquette and chair split. Choose the spicy edamame. Eat something before you arrive if you have a serious appetite. And pace the sparkling, because it goes down like water.

Worth it. I would book the next one without thinking about it, and I would take someone who claims not to like sake, because this is the night that fixes that. Perfect for the sake curious, for date nights where you want something to talk about, and for anyone with a Japan trip in the diary. Mine is Tokyo next year, and this has made me considerably more excited about it.

Skip it if you are going primarily to be fed. Next time I will eat a proper lunch beforehand and treat the £110 as the price of learning something, which is exactly what it was.

Website and newsletter: akilondon.com

The Dassai x Aki sake tasting at Aki London was £110 per person when I went in September 2026. That covered five courses, five Dassai sakes poured and topped up throughout the evening, and edamame alongside. A glass of champagne arrived on the house, which was a kindness rather than something to expect. Prices correct at time of visit.

No, the Dassai dinner at Aki London was a one off event and it is not currently listed on the restaurant's What's On page. Join the Aki London newsletter at akilondon.com to hear when similar evenings are announced, and follow Antonio Palmarini, the sommelier who poured on the night, for early word.

The tasting at Aki London poured five Dassai sakes: Dassai 45 Nigori Sparkling, Dassai 23, Dassai 39, Dassai Future with Farmers, and Dassai Umeshu with dessert. The numbers refer to how far the Yamada Nishiki rice has been polished, so Dassai 23 keeps only 23 per cent of each grain.

Aki London is at 1 Cavendish Square, Marylebone, W1G 0LA, in a Grade II listed former bank just behind Oxford Circus. The main dining room is the original banking hall, and the cocktail bar sits downstairs in the old vaults. Oxford Circus is the closest underground station, a few minutes on foot.