Hana Matsuri, Meanwood: 'I ate at the tiny Yorkshire restaurant where you can watch the chef cook - and it was mesmerising'

Eating out isn’t cheap these days and it’s often tempting to plump for a favourite old haunt rather than trying somewhere different and risk being disappointed.

For me, Hana Matsuri was one of those places.

This tiny, and I mean tiny (there are only six counter seats at the front and another couple in the back room) Japanese restaurant opened in Meanwood in 2016 just as the north Leeds suburb was starting to take off (you know an area is moving up in the world when it gets a Waitrose).

It’s the brainchild of owner and chef Kaoru Nakamura whose dream was to create an authentic Japanese dining experience in Leeds.

He wanted to show people that Japanese cuisine was about more than just sushi or ramen, which led to Hana Matsuri evolving into an ‘Omakase’ fine dining experience.

This came with prices to match and perhaps that’s why I demurred.

But when I heard he had opened Sushi Nakamura, a new fine dining restaurant in Leeds city centre, and turned Hana Matsuri into an ‘Onigiri Izakaya’ with a new chef, it felt an opportune moment to pay a visit.

Izakayas are independent neighbourhood restaurants where friends and family can catch up over food and drinks. These are hugely popular in Japan, as are onigiri, rice balls that have a savoury filling.

From the outside, Hana Matsuri looks unassuming. Housed on a busy main road in the middle of a line of small shops, bars and cafes, it’s the kind of place you could easily walk past without giving it a second glance.

But inside it’s like stepping through a portal into a Japanese kitchen.

Despite its size, it’s not much bigger than a living room, it is a welcoming space with wall prints and ceramic teapots on the counter that offer a quiet nod to its heritage.

And it’s at the counter where most of the action takes place. I say ‘action’ because you get to see the chef make each of the intricate dishes.

There’s something about watching a master of their craft at work whether it’s a weaver or a stonemason and seeing the chef, who is from Hong Kong and has been honing his skills for 20 years, creating these little culinary works of art was really quite meditative.

At this point I should mention that the website menu didn’t quite tally with the larger one we were presented with which also included nigiri (a type of sushi), special rolls and Hosomaki rolls, alongside some of the online dishes.

The choice of drinks was a little bit underwhelming in that they didn’t have any wine available and were also missing some of their sake options.

This wasn’t the most auspicious of starts but sometimes in life you just have to go with the flow.

When it came to ordering food we asked for some recommendations and went with these.

The beauty of somewhere like this is you can order as little or as much as you like and you can always come back for more.

We opted for some nigiri – medium fat tuna, Yellowtail tuna and sea bass – which came with wasabi and ginger, along with some tuna rolls just for good measure.

Each tasted as good as they looked with the medium fat tuna nigiri, which doesn’t sound particularly appetising, the star of the show.

It was almost salmon-like in appearance with a soft, delicate flavour that was utterly delicious.

Having seen the chef prepare one of the special ‘Dragon rolls’ for the couple sitting next to us, and based on their nodding approval, we followed suit.

These exquisite rice rolls were filled with tempura prawn, avocado and mayonnaise, topped with blowtorched eel, coming together in a triumph of flavours and textures.

We finished with a couple of fried dishes.

Firstly, the soft-shell crab with avocado which was, like everything that came before it, as pretty as a picture and then chicken karaage (Japanese-style fried chicken) which might not have won a beauty contest on Instagram but was meltingly soft and served in a sweet, sticky pool of what my grandfather would have merrily called ‘sluther’.

The bill for two, including three beers and a subtle, yet delicious, bottle of sake, was £103.60 which given the quality of the ingredients and the skill on show is mightily good value in my book.

That said, this won’t be everyone’s cup of tea.

For starters, the waitress and the chef weren’t fluent in English (though their English was infinitely better than my Japanese), which made ordering dishes a bit confusing initially, though this was more than made up for by their friendliness and enthusiasm.

Also, the fact it’s so small made the atmosphere a little bit hushed, which meant it felt more like a library than a restaurant at times.

So if you like places that are loud and busy where everyone’s sitting cheek by jowl then this might not be for you.

In my eyes, though, there’s a world of difference between sitting in a large, soulless dining room where the number of bored-looking staff outnumber the guests, and somewhere like this which is cosy, intimate and dare I say, authentic.

I haven’t been to Japan, but I’m planning to go next year and if I found somewhere like this in the backstreets of Osaka or Kyoto then I’d be a very happy man.

Welcome 4/5

Food 5/5

Atmosphere 5/5

Prices 5/5

Hana Matsuri, 580 Meanwood Road, Meanwood, Leeds. LS6 4AZ. www.hanamatsuri.co.uk