Crystal Palace is not what it used to be. Friends of mine who grew up not too far away used to have only slightly exaggerated tales of taking their life, or more probably their beer money, in their hands when heading over for a night out. But, my, things have changed. The golden spot is a triangle of streets formed by Church Road, Westow Street and Westow Hill. Walking around there feels like watching gentrification in action: Female-only training spaces next to fried chicken shops, cool pubs with bare lightbulbs and handwritten menus next to all night taxi offices. A couple of art galleries next to a chinese takeaway. Exactly the kind of place you want to live to be somewhere where something is happening.
And if any further proof were needed that Crystal Palace is now no longer a place to sleep but also a palace to live then it is with the opening of a branch of Taro. For those that do not know this excellent and growing group of Japanese restaurants, they were started by the eponymous Mr Taro on Brewer Street in Soho back in 1999, when along with the late great Ten Ten Tai across the road they offered authentic Japanese food to a willing local clientele. Spare decoration, wooden tables and chairs, an open kitchen preparing sushi and sashimi before your eyes. We had not seen this before, and you had to explain the concept of a bento box to friends when taking them there. Best of all, great food at decidedly un-scary prices. Taro was, and remains, a hit.
Now Crystal Palace is their 10th opening, and when I walked down to it you can tell it is going to work.
So what does it offer? Let’s start with the bento boxes. £21 will get you the ever popular Chicken Teriyaki Bento Box, with teriyaki chicken and vegetables nestled on rice with teriyaki sauce, edamame, beansprouts, two pieces of roll sushi, prawn & salmon nigiri, and five pieces of salmon sashimi. The chicken is crispy yet tender inside, the vegetables crisp and then the teriyaki sauce is the sticky amber sauce with sweet, salty, umami-rich flavours that you want. While it is only made from three ingredients (soy sauce, sugar and mirin) the skill is in the combination and at Taro they know exactly what they are doing.
There are a variety on offer beyond teriyaki with chicken, salmon or beef – pork Tonkotsu, chicken katsu, prawn tempura, eel, tuna steak… Essentially whatever your go to Japanese centrepiece happens to be, you can get an excellent bento box with it at the heart. For a very reasonable number of your pounds.
Yet beyond bento the scope of the menu is excellent – all that you could wish for in starters (endamame, yakitori skewers, various gyoza, chicken karaage) and rice dishes. Then there are wonderful ramen, udon and yakisoba noodles, but what sets Taro apart from many others is the extensive, fresh sushi, sashimi and hand rolls. Here is your chance to dip into the world of ikura (raw roe), surf clam, squid, octopus and eel. It remains one of the wonderful things about Taro that it allows you to dip your toes into trying these wonderful and delicious Japanese dishes and ingredients that otherwise you might shy away from without needing to break the bank at an omakase joint.
Finally, no visit is complete without ordering at least one of the Chef’s Special Rolls. These are delicious and vast monsters which are something of a Taro signature. Given that we were at the Crystal Palace branch, it would have been odd not to have ordered the Palace Special Roll (£18.90). And epic it was too: prawn tempura and avocado topped with marinated tuna and house special dressing with crispy leeks on top. You can argue the toss about whether it runs counter to the restraint inherent in Japanese food, but I think forget that this roll is absolutely delicious! Crispy prawns, umami from the tuna, and I love the texture contrast between the crispy leeks and the creamy sauce. My guest had the dragon roll: avocado, crab stick with mayonnaise and teriyaki sauce topped with grilled eel and tobiko. That was pretty epic too.
Service was as wonderfully friendly as you would expect from Taro, helpful too in guiding us through the menu, and the space itself has the clean lines and spare elegance that is their signature look. Drinks are spot on too, from beers to some pretty punchy cocktails.
So how to conclude? It’s great to see Taro spreading its wings across London and doing so in a way that is true to why I loved the original in ‘99; Taro allows you (and, with its prices, affords) an opportunity gently to explore the wonder that is Japanese food. They are far too polite and charming to make you feel like a rube just because you don’t know what bonito is (back then I certainly did not), and Taro still has that cool feeling of “this is why I live in London – to have a great Japanese restaurant on my doorstep”. So when you hear a friend moaning about the city, take them to Taro for a quick supper as that should get them to shut up.
Taro Crystal Palace, 107 Church Rd, London SE19 2PR – 020 3859 2875 – tarorestaurants.uk
Reservations: tarorestaurants.uk, dojo.app
Opening hours: 12 noon to 10pm every day (9.30pm on Sundays)
