Great ingredients meet weird decisions at Wild Izakaya

I want to love Wild Izakaya. Instead, I leave £130 poorer and deeply annoyed.

It has all the ingredients of a sure thing. The chef has pedigree. The space promises Tokyo izakaya energy rather than hushed sushi bar reverence. The menu is broad, a proper sweep from nigiri and sashimi to skewers, fried dishes and rice plates. How good does that sound!?

Wild Izakaya is also from the wider family behind Goodman, which sets a certain expectation in my mind. Solid. Professional. Expensive, yes, but worth it.

As the meal progresses, I start realising that Wild Izakaya  has brilliant raw materials undermined by questionable decisions.

There’s too much wasabi here, swinging to no seasoning there. Deep-fried things are stupidly drowned in liquid, which counters any of the crunch and texture they might have had. Pacing collapses into chaos.

I leave feeling like the only truly wild thing about Wild Izakaya is the price-to-pleasure ratio.

Quick info on Wild Izakaya

• Restaurant: Wild Izakaya
• Location: City of London
• Best bits: wagyu kushi skewer
• Skip: crispy rice salmon, tsukune chicken skewers
• Price: Over £100 pp

Find out the hairy details in the rest of this Wild Izakaya restaurant review.

The Wild Izakaya menu

The Wild Izakaya menu includes nigiri, sashimi, maki, temaki, skewers, fried plates, and gohan bowls. It reads like a restaurant where you can order widely and let the kitchen show off.

It’s also the sort of menu that demands pacing. You need things to arrive in a sensible order, so the hot dishes stay hot and the raw dishes stay pristine. The staff tell us, unprompted, that they’ll pace things properly.

They don’t.

The sashimi that starts off promising and then flops

We start things off with yellowtail truffle sashimi.

Four thick pieces of yellowtail arrive rolled and sitting in a clear soy broth, flecked with truffle like expensive confetti. Visually, it’s beautiful. The fish looks glossy and fresh, and the truffle fragrance is inviting.

Then you taste it and the balance is totally off. The vinegar hits too hard – it’s sharp to the point of dominance. The yellowtail is delicate, but instead of being allowed to melt softly, it feels drowned in a loud dressing.

It’s the first example of great ingredients paired with misjudged execution.

And it’s frustrating, because I know how good yellowtail can be when it’s treated with restraint. The yellowtail dish at Osteria Angelina, for example, had far better harmony, even though that meal was all over the place.

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At Wild Izakaya, the kitchen tries to be fancy and ends up bulldozing the fish.

Nigiri and the wasabi jump scare

Before we even get to the fish, Wild Izakaya sets you up for confusion.

Every place setting comes with a bottle of soy sauce and a little dish clearly intended for mixing soy with wasabi. On the table, it reads as: season your nigiri yourself.

Then the nigiri arrives, and the plate itself also has a fairly large serving of wasabi sitting on it. Again, it suggests DIY seasoning.

So I dutifully mix soy sauce with the amount of wasabi I usually like, then I dunk the first piece.

It is, in hindsight, a mistake for two reasons.

First, the rice is barely held together. It’s delicate in that beautiful, proper way, but it means dunking is risky. You can feel the structure threatening to collapse as soon as it hits the soy.

Second, and more importantly, I realise too late that the nigiri is already pre-seasoned. Under the fish, pressed into the rice, there’s a concentrated dot of wasabi.

So my first piece of nigiri becomes wildly over-seasoned: my own soy-wasabi dunk plus their hidden wasabi bomb underneath the fish. The flavours clash, the rice threatens to fall apart, and instead of tasting pristine fish, I’m mostly tasting heat.

Even once I stop dunking, the pre-seasoning itself still has a major flaw.

Too often, the wasabi is applied as a single concentrated blob underneath the fish, like a hidden landmine. So you get a few bites of lovely fish… and then suddenly you hit that dot and the wasabi flavour explodes in one harsh, nasal hit.

That is not what you want from expensive nigiri.

Yellowtail nigiri

Wasabi issues aside, the yellowtail nigiri at Wild Izakaya is glorious. The yellowtail melts as soon as it hits your tongue, buttery and clean, with a gentle sweetness that makes you want another immediately.

Korean turbot nigiri

With more body than the yellowtail, the turbot nigiri has a slightly firmer bite and leaner flavour, but is still delicious. It has that clean sea-snap to it, and the texture feels confident and precise.

Scallop nigiri

Scallop is still one of my favourite sushi bites anywhere. Here it tastes squeaky-clean in the best way, sweet and fresh, with that soft resistance before it yields. Lovely mouthfeel, gentle and satisfying.

Toro nigiri

I’ve had run ins with fatty tuna in the past (ahem, Eel Sushi Notting Hill), but here the toro is actually good. It’s fatty but not overwhelming, rich without turning greasy. It coats the mouth in a good way, like a silk scarf of flavour.

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King crab nigiri

The crab itself is tender and melting, sweet and luxurious.

And then, once again, too much wasabi sits underneath in one concentrated hit. Suddenly, the whole thing is less lovely than it should be.

Crispy rice salmon is the dish I came for

The crispy rice salmon is the dish I’m most excited for at Wild Izakaya, having seen it on social media.

It’s formed of crispy rice bites in a basket, with a chopped raw salmon spread (pate?) on the side. Before I try it, I imagine that it’ll be fun, crunchy, saucy, slightly addictive.

Instead it arrives oddly naked, like it’s missing an essential final step.

There’s no sauce. No brightness. No seasoning that reaches you. The salmon mixture tastes almost flavourless, bland in a way that makes you wonder if the kitchen simply forgot to finish it.

The rice cubes are worse. Rather than a clean crunch, they have a chalky, powdery coating that clings to your palate in a hideous way.

I try dipping it into the leftover soy and wasabi from the nigiri nightmare, and it still doesn’t come alive. It remains a dull, slightly unpleasant mouthful.

Agedashi tofu, the deep fry that dissolves into sadness

At first, the deep fried agedashi tofu is lovely. Think wobbly tofu inside a light, crisp shell, the coating shattering delicately as you bite. It arrives in a pool of dashi that smells savoury and comforting.

Then, unfortunately, the whole thing starts to melt into itself.

The tofu pieces are too big to pick up neatly with chopsticks, so first you try to cut them, which is a mistake because they start shattering into little, impossible to pick up shards.

And because they sit in liquid, the fried coating starts to soften immediately.

By halfway through, the crispness has collapsed, turning into a slippery, Soggy gelatinous layer.

It’s such a self-sabotage moment. Why go to the effort of frying something so carefully, only to serve it in a way that destroys the very reason it’s good?

Skewers, where one dish saves the day and another wastes your time

First we try the wagyu kushi skewer, which is excellent. Finally something that feels worth the money at Wild Izakaya.

The wagyu is tender, deeply meaty, and rich without being heavy, lacquered with sweet soy that clings in a most delicious way. The flavour is intense and satisfying, and the texture is everything you want from wagyu. This is the standout dish of the entire meal.

Then, like the restaurant can’t resist tripping itself up again, the tsukune skewers arrive.

They’re made of chicken meatballs, which have a loose and oddly bitty texture, elongated like a sausage but without the pleasant cohesion of one. You mix an egg yolk on the side and dip, which should add richness.

Instead, the whole thing tastes tame. Almost bland. Soft, slightly mushy, and lacking the savoury punch you want from chicken skewers.

It’s one of those bites where you chew and then wonder why you’re chewing.

Unagi maki, interesting but not for me

The unagi is chewy and gelatinous, paired with finely julienned cucumber. It’s an interesting contrast, but it’s not my personal craving. I prefer the clean melt of yellowtail and scallop, or the firmer bite of turbot.

This one is more a preference thing than a kitchen failure, but I still wouldn’t rush to order it again.

Final thoughts on lunch at Wild Izakaya London

Wild Izakaya London has the raw materials to be excellent.

The fish quality is often beautiful, and the yellowtail and turbot in particular shine. The wagyu skewer is genuinely outstanding.

But the meal as a whole is undermined by too many avoidable problems: heavy-handed wasabi pre-seasoning, bland dishes that shouldn’t be bland, plating decisions that actively sabotage texture, and bad pacing.

And when lunch costs £130, potential isn’t enough.

I wanted Wild Izakaya to feel like a confident, high-energy Tokyo izakaya in the City. Instead, it feels like an expense-account restaurant with a glossy surface and an inconsistent kitchen.

If this restaurant review sounds harsh, it’s because I left unsatisfied. Not just mildly underwhelmed, but properly disappointed.

With prices like this, Wild Izakaya needs to tighten up. Until then, I’d spend my money elsewhere.

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Wild Izakaya restaurant review
Address – 33 Old Jewry, London EC2V 8EY
Nearest Tube – Bank