Shochu Lounge in Camden

I was with a group of friends celebrating a birthday, the super nice place there is DJ all night, the attention of the staff spectacular as well as what we tried; sweet potato tempura with yuzu shichimi yasai and the MAKI ROLLS was very delicious. The acceptable price according to the place. I'll definitely come back

My favourite London restaurant seriously went down in my estimation. Amazing food, fantastic service but completely let down by nightclub-volume music when we visited. Totally get a “lounge” vibe and the tunes are good but the volume went WAY beyond this. Completely unable to hear a thing! Front of house staff are really fantastic (except for the manager who has an undeserved high opinion of himself). Guess what pal, you’re not the only person who ran a nice restaurant and your attitude is all wrong. Lose the ego and listen to your customers - if you can hear them. Voting with my feet will avoid in future.

We sat down to dinner at 7:30pm Sat night and the first 30 mins was a great experience, nice lounge vibe, great cocktails and music. Then at 8pm the music got turned up very loud (and also changed to more club-style music, not lounge). We asked the manager if he could set the music back at the normal volume - his immediate reaction was to ask sniffily “do you want to move upstairs”. Apparently the decision has been made that Friday and Saturday nights are a "DJ experience" and not a restaurant experience. Servers acknowledge it’s impossible to hear each other. Food was very good (we had the excellent tasting menu), servers were very good, but the manager made clear that anyone who wanted to have a non-shouting conversation over dinner was not welcome. (This is why when you look around the restaurant at 8:30 or 9pm it’s a lot of couples looking around the restaurant and not talking to each other, obviously wondering “is this fun or have we been suckered?")

Recommended by friends we tried the Shochu Lounge as it was close to our hotel. Arrived at Roka on Charlotte Street and were directed downstairs to the dimly lit lounge prettily decorated with blossom trees. At 6.30pm we were one of the first tables but it soon filled up and had a good atmosphere, helped along with some fairly loud dance beat music. We chose a range of food to try and can honestly say that there was not a weak link - it was all absolutely delicious. Choices included: crispy prawn and avocado maki, crab and black cod dumplings, salmon fillet teriyaki, sea bass with ginger seaweed, sashimi and wagyu beef with caviar. To be honest I could have given dessert a miss but an so glad I didn’t as it was spectacular - banoffee and Tonka bean ice-cream with fire roasted banana - all light as a feather and one of the tastiest things I have ever eaten. Along with the wine it wasn’t cheap but we thought it was worth it for the taste sensations!!

Lo recomendaría 1000%. La oferta de brunch es absolutamente deliciosa y ridículamente barata por la calidad de la comida, las bebidas, el ambiente y el servicio. Volveremos seguro.