Called Roji, the restaurant named translates as journey or path, but can also mean back/hidden alley, and will be located on South Molton Street.
Menus will be required to be prepaid at around £150 per head for dinner excluding drinks, with a lower price lunch option. The meal will comprise a hyper-seasonal menu focusing on British produce with sushi as well as dishes based on pickling and preserving techniques as well as those cooked on a charcoal grill.
Seafood will mostly come from British waters and vegetables from Nama Yasai farm in East Sussex. Crockery will all come from small family producers in both Japan and the UK, with plates selected for specific seasons and dish ingredients.
There will also be the option of a super premium sake pairing from a an extensive sake list that will feature some hard to find and limited run bottles.
Naszai and Hasegawa are both experienced Japanese chefs with Naszai having worked at London restaurants Tokimeite, Sake No Hana and also been a two-time winner of the Japanese Culinary Art Competition. His wife Hasegawa has also worked at Tokemeite as well as at L'Abysse au Pavillon Ledoyen in Paris, and Ginza Shimon in Tokyo.
“We are very excited to be working together. Opening a restaurant as a couple has been our goal for many years and it’s very exciting to see it come to life,” say the couple.
The restaurant is opening in partnership with the Saga Japanese Restaurant Group, which operates Chisou and Sushi Atelier restaurants, and will operate five dinners and four lunches a week with a maximum of 10 customers per sitting.
Bookings will be taken from January 2021, with priority given to Chisou and Sushi Atelier customers.
There will also be a number of preview dinners being hosted at Chisou's Beauchamp Place restaurant on the 19, 20, 26, and 27 January.