Untitled Restaurant Review: Japanese Inspired Small Plates and Delicious Cocktails in Dalston

If there was ever an award offered for the most trendiest restaurant – I think I’ve just found its soon to be recipient. Nestled away in super-cool Dalston, Untitled is one of this districts latest arrivals having opened back in 2017 – offering locals a place to eat, drink and socialise in a relaxed laid-back atmosphere. Concrete walls, erotic artwork and silver foil walls – it’s now how I want my own home to look.

We started our evening in the recently opened Asahi Moon Garden, which is looking fabulous I must say. At the back of the garden is a BBQ for delicious grilled yakitori, a moon which illuminates as the sun sets and a team of experts ready to create cocktail masterpieces designed by the renowned mixologist Tony Conigliaro and his Drink Factory team. Mine was a Red Cocktail and it was delicious. A mixture of raspberry, robust Italian bitters and citrus. Not too dissimilar to a Negroni.

While sipping on the remnants of our cocktails, we delved into some of the dishes created by Michelin starred Rob Roy Cameron. Crispy seaweed & black sesame, kimchi cucumber with sesame and the most unusual of them all – shiso pickled pear with dried seaweed. The food here is most certainly unlike anything you’d be expecting and when it comes to originality it doesn’t get more original than this – or as delicious.

What I quickly discovered was the food here at Untitled is much more than just small plates to accompany cocktails, but instead an education of flavours and unusual combinations which almost always work. One of those creations which I fell completely in love with was the oyster hot dog with yuzu kusho mayo. Especially more so given how much I don’t really enjoy fresh oysters (don’t tell anyone) but this was a revelation in my books.

Better still was my favourite dish of our evening. These unusual lamb brioche patties were packed with ginger, moist lamb and shiitake. You won’t have seen or tasted anything like it before, but you’ll most certainly be coming back for many more. Even I can’t begin to describe them, though I can confirm they’re quite amazing.

I also really loved the selection of yakitori which on a warm Summers day is cooked in the Moon Garden on the BBQ. The smoked chicken with spring onion & sesame was my favourite, while the squid with smoked bacon and smoked eel with unagi sauce left the palate feeling incredibly satisfied.

The grilled edamame with bulldog sauce on skewers has gone down in my books as the best edamame variation in history, while the boneless chicken wings with sweet kimchi will leave you licking your fingers all evening. Perhaps a bottomless wings Wednesday might go down rather well? It would certainly have my vote.

I should probably assure you that I did actually share all of this food and not eat it myself, but one dish I really didn’t want to share was this bowl of mussels on leek with a yuzu beurre blanc. Rich, fresh and those mussels were so plump and meaty you could tell alot of care had gone into both sourcing and cooking them just right. Another rich dish was the aubergine with miso and hazelnuts – something you’ll also want to order at least two portions of. Both dishes were an absolute steal priced at under £6 each.

We didn’t quite managed desserts, but we did enjoy a few more glasses of wine while watching the Moon Garden’s moon shine brightly in the night sky.

We had a really lovely evening here at Untitled and I’d love to come back and explore it further in the future. A few more of those brioche lamb beauties, a bowl of mussels and a few too many cocktails? My only regret is that it’s not a little closer to my home. If you’re looking for a cocktail fuelled evening and a Japanese inspired meal to educate your palate then look no further because it’s here in Dalston waiting for you all.

NB: Our evening was complimentary. All views are as always, my own. My views are not influenced by anyone other than my own palate and slightly poor eyesight.