Review: Rofuto, Birmingham

There’s a lot going on in Birmingham. It’s gradually London-ising. Started with a couple of decent coffee shops. Then some better casual dining options and some street food. Next thing you know, they’ll even get some interesting independent shops. Of course it’s not going to match London – 8 million people are always going to get more choice and quality than 1 million people. But in just the three years I’ve been working here Brum has upped its game enormously. It even seems to have developed a couple of good Japanese options. Top of the heap would be Rofuto.

Literally top of the heap, on the 16th floor of the Park Regis hotel. It’s a large and spacious dining room, and although nicely furnished it does betray its hotel pairing a bit. Service was young, friendly and not very informed. When I asked for some help with the sake menu he kindly explained that there are various sized flasks and this “umeshu” one is sweet and all the others are… more dry. And that was it. He was dry too. I was actually too embarrassed to ask “sooo… is there anyone that can actually help me?” and just ordered at random.

I only mention this just to banish a notion: don’t expect Rofuto to be a hallowed temple of Japanese cuisine like some of the tiny jewels with the eye-watering prices in London. It’s a restaurant above a hotel, and the kitchen produces good Japanese food. Job done.

Our first sushi was of black cod, with a beautifully scorched taste and a powerful miso glaze (dengaku) on top. This was sushi with a bow tie on. The two maki we tried were also very good; nicely crabby and crunchy California roll, and unctuous eel with its own char-grilled aftertaste. Very good nori, nothing chewchewchewy about it at all.

Next up, a skewer of bright pink cherry-smoked salmon off the grill. Hefty on the sprinkled salt crystals in places. Made better by the lemongrass microherb scattered on it (at least, that’s what it tasted like to me). There was also some good asparagus off the grill too. Probably the best cooked dish was the tempura “Japanese fish and chips” consisting of some nice chunks of white fish in a light and scrunchy batter, no sense of oiliness, and some crispy fried strips of yam. It came with a colourful dish of wasabi mushy peas, and a passion fruit tartare sauce, though I couldn’t detect any fruit over the sharp sauce.

The one dud dish was a salad of config duck and raspberry sunomono with watercress. This was just some ingredients in a bowl, the oily/dirty flavour of the duck clashed with the delicate vinaigrette on the leaves and the halved raspberries were brief sweet bombshells.

They deserve a bonus point for some tasty desserts though. Pineapple off the robata grill with lemongrass sorbet was good, and my lemon and yuzu tart was tangy and delicious with a decent pastry.

On the evidence of our meal, Rofuto does sushi best, and if I came back I’d probably focus on that side of the menu. Only the black cod sushi reminded me of Japan, Rofuto was otherwise the better end of the kind of Japanese restaurant generally found in the UK. We paid about £40 each for what was a complete meal without drinks. That’s verging on the pricey, for the quality, but then again it’s always very fine to be dining with a view.