LA-Bound Robata Grill Restaurant by Zuma Now Heads to London's Soho

Restaurateur Rainer Becker, who founded Zuma and Roka in London — as well as a global portfolio that extends across 11 cities — has secured a new site for a Japanese robata grill concept called Inko Nito at 55 Broadwick Street in Soho, MCA revealed on Twitter this morning.

It appears to be the same concept that is scheduled to open in Los Angeles before the end of this year, and which was reported by Eater LA in September. In that announcement, Inko Nito is described a “casual space for robatayaki (often just called robata), which means lots of meat and charcoal cooking, ideally with a live look into the kitchen itself.” The company also operates four sites under the Roka name across London.

Eater understands that the London site has been let by Davis Coffer Lyons and Hanover Green as joint agents on behalf of the estate landlord, Shaftesbury a company who are completely overhauling the retail and dining programme across Soho and Chinatown.

The specific site on Broadwick Street understood to have been acquired by the Zuma group had been advertised as the 3130 sq ft “flagship restaurant space” within the new development, opposite Patisserie Valerie and only a few doors up from London-born Temper Soho, Neil Rankin’s taco and grill restaurant that opened earlier this year. Given that it is a brand new lease, no premium is understood to have paid on the site.

It is not known when the site will open, though the site has been available for a tenant since September this year.

Zuma in Knightsbridge — which opened in 2002 — is a restaurant known for its celebrity following and for its game-changing early aughts cross-sectioning of high-end Japanese with the more accessible izakaya (grill and drinks) format. Roka, which first launched on Charlotte Street in 2004 now has four sites in London — in Canary Wharf, Mayfair and Aldwych.