A new luxury Japanese restaurant in London has added Britain’s most expensive steak to the menu – at up to £900 for a single serving.
Aragawa, a top-end Tokyo steakhouse serving the famously succulent Kobe Beef, opened its first branch outside of Japan in Mayfair on Friday.
And while restaurant critics are yet to have their say, the prices have already created a huge buzz amongst the capital’s bon vivants.
Defending the pricing of the beef, which is available in five choices ranging from £500 to £900 for a 14-ounce serving, founder Kotaro Ogawa told the Evening Standard: ‘We are bringing the best quality when it comes to the meat, something you rarely see even in Japan.
‘This means the cost of the meat is very high. We are not just overpricing it because it is London.’
A sirloin steak at Aragawa, imported from Nishizawa Farm in Japan’s Hyogo prefecture, will set diners back £760.
A new luxury Japanese restaurant in London has added Britain’s most expensive steak to the menu – at up to £900 for a single serving
Aragawa, a top-end Tokyo steakhouse serving the famously succulent Kobe Beef, opened its first branch outside of Japan in Mayfair on Friday
Wine is also available, with some vintages nearing £1,500 a bottle.
The restaurant’s main attraction however, is its Tajima Wagyu steak, which, according to the historic Michelin guide, can be expected to ‘melt in your mouth like smooth caramel, leaving the silken finish of beef and butter on the tongue’.
It is considered so rich it is normally only eaten in small amounts.
The unique qualities of Japanese beef like its vivid white marbling are often put down to the more than 300-year isolation of the country during the Edo Period (1603-1867), in which there was no cross-breeding with foreign cattle.
The eatery is the first overseas branch in a chain of steak restaurants that first opened in Kobe in 1956 and Tokyo in 1967.
Aragawa specialises in steaks cut from the super-premium Tajima strain of black wagyu cattle.
The meat is sourced from farms which raise less than 1,000 animals a year, and each steak must pass strict tests on marbling, colour, texture, as well as firmness and lustre.
The beef is aged for three weeks and is shipped from Japan.
Chefs cook the meat in a specialist kiln which can take just three steaks at a time, before it is rested and lightly seasoned with salt and pepper.