Sushi Waka

Used to live in Camden town 3 years ago but moved to Northern Ireland now, came back again for this place as I have a great memory here. Love the taste of the food, like the service as well, a young waiter who served us today, he apologized to us just because he forgot to put one thing on our order, which we feel he is very very sincere~Hope he won’t feel too bad, as we like his service!

The sushi is great although I'm no barometer of authenticity. People complain that the interior is "rundown" but it's charming and the service is excellent. Yes, it gets busy, but it's in Camden and the food is great. It may seem expensive but some plates are really filling, with Udon noodles and fried chicken packed with flavour and in big portions. Stick to the sushi if that's what you came for but the huge menu has some really great diversions.

Love love love this cozy, family-run Japanese restaurant. So much so that I don't want to rave about it too much so it gets too popular - it books up at the weekend already. They answer the phone in Japanese, and warmly give all customary greetings when you arrive and depart, and the walls and alcoves all have Japanese decorations, in a genuine kind of way. The upstairs even has a room with tatami mats where you take off your shoes and are sat at floor level. Then the food: both the warm and the cold dishes are excellent. I feel like they could easily charge more for the quality of fish they are using and presentation, but it has stayed good value for the past decade I've been going. I find they prepare particularly sumptuous mackerel - if you're not sure if you like it, try it here. If you find all the small dishes on the menu overwhelming to choose from, you can always safely go for the sushi set. I attach a photo of their lovingly prepared chirashi which can also come as part of a set. Warm dishes that are delicious, restorative home cooking include the nasu dengaku (aubergine miso) where they achieve a perfect balance of salty and sweet and umami, the gobo no tempura (burdock root tempura) which is lovely and fried and salty, and chewy inside the light crispy batter coat, and their spot-on miso soup. I heard once that two dishes to judge a Japanese restaurant on are their miso soup and their tamago (egg omelette), because they are so simple, that people who don't understand the cuisine can easily not take them seriously and it's indicative of how the rest of the food will be. You can really tell that Sushi Waka's miso soup is not being achieved with anything instant, and that proper care and attention has been given to the balance of flavours. This soup makes me smile. It may be small and unassuming, but as unpretentious, genuine, welcoming, good quality and good value as it is, it's my favourite Japanese restaurant in London.

I thought the food here was really nice, and it's great value, but the restaurant itself looks really old and tired and there's absolutely no ambience. All the tables/chairs/serving plates etc are all really knackered old plastic and just need going over, there's an old aquarium with green water and everything looks like it hasn't changed since the late 80s. Some people will say it feels authentic, but I just thought it felt a bit neglected. The food is so good that you could honestly ignore that, but if it was a bit nicer this restaurant would be amazing. Pham Sushi is still my best bet for excellence sushi in London (without a stupid price tag).