Kumori London Puts Handrolls Centre Stage – But Some Are Better Than Others

Handroll bars are officially having a moment in London, and Kumori is the newest restaurant to step into the spotlight. It’s a confident new entrant, with counter seating, premium seafood, and a design-led Soho setting.

The concept is simple: chefs prepare each handroll in front of you and hand it over one by one. Three bites, then repeat.

So we book seats at Kumori Soho to find out if it actually delivers on its confidence. And to tell you which handrolls to order, and which to skip. 

Quick info on Kumori London

• Location: Denman Street, Soho
• Concept: Japanese handroll bar
• We ordered: 6 handrolls (a la carte)
• Bill: £83 including sparkling water
• Must order: burnt salmon, foie gras & unagi, spicy scallop
• Skip: baked crab, yellowtail kosho

Find out more about what to order and what to skip in the Kumori handroll review below.

What Kumori Soho looks like (and where to sit)

Before we get to the food, we need to talk about the room.

The space is compact, with around 30 covers, built around a long counter facing the chefs. If you’re coming to Kumori, sit at the counter if you can. Watching salmon being torched, tuna being folded into nori, scallops being spooned in generous chunks – it’s dinner and a show.

Kumori feels calibrated for Soho in 2026. The design is deliberate and striking. Purple and pink LED lighting washes the room in a vibrant glow, inspired by Tokyo Bay at sunset. Vinyl sleeves line a shelf along the wall, and sheer curtain panels float above the kitchen like stage dressing.

It feels modern and curated. And while the lighting will make Instagrammers very happy, it’s the live preparation in front of you that makes the restaurant hum.

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How the Kumori London menu works

The Kumori menu is built around simplicity. You can choose one of the three set menu options for handrolls, or order a la carte. Most rolls sit between £10 and £12, with premium options slightly higher.

The set menus offer three, four or five rolls, and they make financial sense if you’re happy to let the kitchen guide you. But if you want specific combinations (like foie gras or toro), you’ll likely end up ordering individually, which nudges the bill up quickly.

Beyond Japanese handrolls, there are a few small plates and drinks, but this is clearly a roll-first experience. Each handroll arrives as it’s made, and is intentionally designed to be eaten immediately while the nori is crisp and the filling still warm.

Three bites per handroll. That’s the rhythm.

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Burnt salmon handroll is the winner

This is where Kumori shines.

We watch chunks of salmon being blowtorched, the edges catching and blistering slightly. It’s then swizzled with a sauce and expertly wrapped in nori. The chef then hands it to you across the counter.

It’s still warm from the torch, fatty enough to dissolve before the rice has fully registered
Then you get a gentle spice, and crisp popped rice for crunch.

The texture contrast is brilliant. Soft salmon, crackling rice, taut nori. It feels balanced and considered, but still fun and incredibly delicious.

If you’re scanning this Kumori Soho review for what to order, start here.

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Spicy scallop handroll is a must order

The scallop roll looks restrained at first glance, with its pale chunks of scallop, roe dotted through, and gentle gloss of sauce.

But the texture is what makes it. The scallops are cut into generous pieces, so you get real bite and bounce rather than mush. The spice is there, but it hums pleasantly, never overpowering the scallop.

It gets better with each bite. By the end, we’re considering ordering another.

Foie gras & unagi handroll is indulgent, in the best way

Unsurprisingly, the foie gras and unagi handroll at Kumori feels unapologetically rich.

The eel is sticky and caramelised, deeply savoury, almost molten. The foie gras amplifies that richness without tipping it into excess, because there’s enough freshness (cucumber crunch, a little acidity) to keep things moving.

It’s rich, sticky, and indulgent without tipping into heaviness.

Honestly, I’d order more than one of these too.

Yellowtail kosho handroll is ok… but too floral for me

Yellowtail is naturally delicate, and Kumori leans into that.

The fish is clean and creamy, but the kosho adds a floral note that feels too perfumed. It takes me to a spa, which isn’t what I want from lunch.

Pleasant? I guess. But there are much better treatments for yellowtail, and this isn’t one of them. 

Toro taku handroll is fine but a bit boring 

Toro (tuna belly) should be a slam dunk, and in isolation, it is.

The tuna is rich and buttery, brushed with sauce, but the texture feels more worked and almost mashed compared to the chunkier scallop or salmon rolls. There are also less textural elements overall, and so there’s less contrast. Less crunch.

If you love toro, and you’re a purist, you might enjoy it. But within the wider Kumori London offering, it’s not the standout Japanese handroll. I would struggle to justify this again. 

Baked crab handroll is a hard miss

This is where things wobble at Kumori London.

The crab filling has the stringy texture of imitation crabsticks – like those dubious ‘fishsticks’ that you get in supermarkets. For a £12 roll, that’s hard to ignore, or forgive.

In terms of taste, the handroll is salty and spicy, wrapped in glossy soy paper, but it lacks freshness and complexity.

There’s no real crunch or lift. And I keep coming back to that damn imitation crab.

The extra crispy nori claim doesn’t hold up

Before going to Kumori London, I’d noticed a specific line being repeated on social media videos (influencers) and on other restaurant media websites.

The line was about how Kumori has ‘extra crispy’ nori, said like that, verbatim. The repetition sounded suspiciously like a PR-fed hook to differentiate the restaurant compared to the many other handroll spots in London.

I rolled my eyes when I saw the same term pop up everywhere, and made a mental note to check out that claim.

And I get it – because in a handroll restaurant, nori is the structure and texture element of the dish. It’s the frame holding everything together. And yes, it should be crisp.

At Kumori, the nori is is good in that it holds its shape.

But ‘extra crispy’? No.

It’s standard, good-quality nori, the kind you’d expect at any competent handroll bar, or that you’d get from any supermarket pack of nori for home-cooked sushi enthusiasts. It doesn’t crackle more loudly, it doesn’t redefine the format.

And the insistance that it does is irritating.

The handrolls that shine at Kumori do so because of flavour layering and texture contrast, like the char on the salmon, the pop of roe in the scallop, the molten richness of foie gras and eel. Not because the seaweed wrapper is somehow technologically superior.

Can we please drop the PR lines and have a single original thought?

So is Kumori Soho worth it?

Kumori is at its best when the handrolls lean into contrast: warm salmon against crisp rice, sweet eel against rich foie gras, scallop with just enough spice to keep things lively.

Those are the must-order dishes that make the counter format feel exciting, and the reason this restaurant will probably have plenty of people booking in.

But the menu isn’t consistent enough to justify ordering blindly, especially at these prices. A few rolls are excellent, a couple are forgettable, and one is hard to forgive.

So, is Kumori worth it? Yes, but only if you order carefully (and assuming we have similar tastes). Come for the burnt salmon, spicy scallop, and foie gras with unagi, skip the weaker options, and you’ll have a very good lunch. Get it wrong, and it starts to feel expensive fast.

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Kumori London review
Address – 26 Denman St, London W1D 7HX
Nearest Tube – Piccadilly Circus