Chotto Matte - New fusion restaurant 18th of January 2014

I read about Chotto Matte online somewhere and it sounded really interesting - Japanese / Peruvian fusion? Got to try it!
Booked in for a Saturday evening - it is situated smack in the middle of Soho on Frith street.. i think i remember it being an Italian restaurant there before (Bertorelli's?).
We were greeted by a bouncer dressed in black, wearing a headset (very MI5) and one of those "clickers" recording how many people are coming through the doors.. sounds more like a night club than a restaurant right?

When entering were were met by a "host" - also dressed in black, with a headset but no people counter :-) and he escorted us the 3 meters to the reception. To the right was the bar - which was VERY busy and to the left was the stairs leading up to the 1st floor dining room. Next to the stairs was a DJ keeping the people entertained.

We were ushered upstairs past the robata grill to a small table for 2. We had a very cheerful waiter who guided us through the menu - there are lots of "tapas" sized dishes and they recommend that you share 9-10 dishes between 2.

We started off with the "Taco selection" with Tuna spicy miso, snow crab yuzu, miso vegetables. It was basically nacho chips with 3 dips - very tasty but could have done with more chips!

We then had the "Prawn Tempura" with 3 different dips which were lovely and light. 

We then had the "Seabass Ceviche" with  sweet potato, peruvian corn,
coriander, chive oil, citrus sauce which was lovely and light with some crunch.

 

We then had the "Nikkei Gyoza" with Pork, prawn and cassava dumplings served on amarillo and butternut puree. Very interesting flavours.

 

Next was the "Robata chicken with Miso" with carrot, courgette, yellow chilli
raita. Lovely bite sized charred chicken - again very interesting and tasy.

We then had the "Prawn spring roll, shiitake, yuzu, shiso, ponzu
salsa". Crisp pastry bursting with filling - shame the portion was quite small! But then again - means that you can try more things!

Next up was the "Black cod, yellow chilli miso". I cannot avoid black cod when it is on a menu.. so lovely and delicately flavoured with the miso....

Next was the "Beef rib eye, chives, peruvian chilli" - it looked nothing like you would imagine it - instead it had been flattened and rolled into a cigar shape!

 

 

 Next we had 2 kinds of sushi rolls - "California rolls" and "Beef, peppers, onion, cumine, oregano, soy". The California rolls were lovely - i was in 2 minds about the beef ones - thought they tasted a bit too Indian for me. i liked the crunchy onions on top though!

We decided to go all out and have some dessert too (i know - we totally pigged out here). I had an AMAZING "Salted caramel chocolate fondant" - need i say more? My husband had the "Cheesecake with cherry ripple icecream"

We really enjoyed our dinner. Great ambiance, friendly service and good food. Great place to go to for /before a night out in London.

We had not eaten much all day in order to try as much as possible - however, people next to us on one side had even more food than us (2 girls!!) and the couple on our other side only had 3 dishes to share and a bottle of wine.. so i guess you can do what you want.