Uchiwa

The restaurant's name refers to the war fan carried by samurai — and it's not just a decorative gesture. The concept is built on the 1185 naval battle between the Taira and Minamoto clans: that confrontation ended one of Japan's most powerful families and gave rise to the first shogunate. Off the coast of Honshu, where that battle unfolded, heikegani crabs still live to this day — their shells carry a pattern unsettlingly like a warrior's face frozen in rage. Japanese folklore holds that the spirits of samurai who fell in battle moved into these creatures. That image — the fan, the crab, the battle — runs through everything, from the name to the menu to the objects in the room.

Our restaurant guide's team finds this a place that makes an impression from the first glance: stylish, Japanese-strict, and very alive.

The interior is its own story. Everything standing or hanging in the room — furniture, handmade tableware, traditional knives, cutting boards and the staff's clothing — was brought over from Japan. Boris Zarkov personally selected a large share of the pieces. At the center of the room is a substantial table for ten guests, coated in urushi lacquer; its surface carries a painting of crabs across the four seasons. In the corners of the room stand genuine samurai armor, "maru-do yoroi," and the very war fan that gave the restaurant its name. The space is small and intimate — exactly what the omakase format calls for.

Chef Konstantin Shkarban runs two active sets. The first, "Delicacies of Japan," has ten courses, each built around one key ingredient. It includes marbled wagyu beef, fatty toro tuna, king shrimp and anago eel — not just a list, but a route through Japan's flavor regions and seasons. The second set, "Samurai Crab," is a kaiseki menu where the main characters are Kamchatka crab and snow crab. Guests sit at the open kitchen and watch the chef work with these ingredients strictly by Japanese technique — no shortcuts, no special effects.

Our secret guests gave the dinner 8 out of 10 — a high score for consistency: each set is built so the next course logically continues the last, and the sense of coherence holds through to the finale. That's rare for the omakase format, where it's easy to lose the thread between courses.