Inside amazing London restaurant in an old Oxford Street bank

This new London restaurant in an old bank near Oxford Circus has incredible sushi

New London restaurant Aki has opened in a quiet enclave a few minutes’ walk from Oxford Street

A handsome, high-ceilinged former bank with all its beautiful ceiling cornicing and latticework from its 1825 opening has been refashioned as a Japanese restaurant.

New London restaurant Aki is behind an unassuming door opposite The Phoenix pub a few minutes’ walk from Oxford Circus, but go inside and the space is quite incredible, though more befitting to grand balls than plates of sushi, perhaps. It must be really hard to find furniture that matches the scope of this building and that doesn’t feel drowned out by it.

The team has gone for opulent, though I think stripped-back would have been better: simple poli