Inamo

Location: 134-136 Wardour St, London W1F 8ZP

Taste: 4/5
Presentation: 4/5
Ambience: 3/5
Price: 3/5
Overall: 3.5/5

My father turned another year wiser on Saturday 17th September and to celebrate we went to our very first interactive, Pan-Asian restaurant in Soho, London. My family and I got all dressed up, took some snaps before leaving the house and made our way to Inamo.

Upon entering the restaurant, we were greeted and shown the way to our table. We were seated on the lower ground floor by the kitchen and toilets – really not the best place to sit. I thought we would be seated on the ground floor which would have been lovely as it was well-lit and the decor was nicer than the lower ground floor which felt cramped and dark due to a lack of natural light. Once seated, the waitress explained how to use the interactive ordering system on the table. There’s no such thing as ‘starters’ and ‘mains’ at Inamo, they have a selection of dishes under various categories that you can order and the food will arrive as and when it is ready. The interactive system also had some fun features like playing games and changing the look of your table. Although I have to say, playing battleships on a table where you can see the coordinates of your opponents ships goes against the point of the game so perhaps they need to choose better games.

Time to order food! We ordered a large array of dishes, all of which aren’t pictured above because I was quite hungry and only remembered to take pictures when I was reminded by my family. So this blog post is pretty much thanks to them reminding me to take pictures of the food before I ate it. Also, note that the meat dishes were not eaten by me, they were for my father and Rahul. For drinks we ordered Pino Grigio Blush, tropical storm (non-alcoholic cocktail containing passion fruit, lime, guava juice with a hint of cinnamon), Japanese beer and a classic mojito. Our “starters” were spicy edamame, vegetable uramaki – avocado and cucumber wrapped and rolled in sushi rice, nori, chives and sesame seeds served with soy sauce and wasabi, crispy tofu, kakiage which is highly fried crispy vegetables with a tempura dipping sauce and chicken satay. After a little break and a top up of our drinks – this time some very strong Japanese sake, we ordered “mains” which for myself was a vegan thai red curry served with sticky rice and for the others was tamarind mushrooms with sticky rice and black cod. For desert, I requested the restaurant – when I made the booking to bring out their passion fruit and mango desert – a mango mouse with passion fruit and apricot jelly ad a layer of chocolate cake on a crunch base. They brought it out at the end of our meal and had ‘happy birthday’ written on the plate and very kindly sang happy birthday for my father. As far as the taste of the meal is concerned – it was very nice, not amazing but good especially for the experience it comes with. The service was fantastic – all the staff were very polite and friendly and went out of their way to make sure you were comfortable – we were feeling a bit cold so they turned off the air conditioning and my friend wanted some sugar syrup to add to her mojito which they brought out in a separate tiny bowl.

Overall, the selling point of Inamo is the interactive experience of dinning which is why the food is good but not their unique selling point which is why I felt the price I paid for the meal wasn’t worth the quality of the food. However, it is worth giving this place a try -I would recommend going for a light meal and getting an experience of their technology above all else.