Kibou, Cambridge
Japanese-inspired food in an extremely Instagrammable setting
Everything I know about Kibou can be found on their website: where they are, their opening hours, and the menu. Which isn’t a complaint; it’s just to preface this review by telling you I don’t have any details about what this place hopes to achieve or witty anecdotes about the managers. I went in, got seated, and ordered like a regular human customer. Keeping it real etc etc.
Kibou is located in the spot I always called “The Poshest Pizza Express Ever” on Jesus Lane. I’m very pleased that this beautiful venue is now host to an equally beautiful restaurant that isn’t a mediocre national pizza chain.
The restaurant is divided up into rooms that are tastefully decorated, unlike some Asian-inspired places that absolutely are not. (Thank you, Jen Chong for reminding me about the atrocity that is Ivy Asia. I had blanked it out of my mind for obvious reasons.) The spaces are cosy and intimate, even on a busy evening.
I have been to highly rated, Michelin-starred restaurants that have terrible, dingy, disappointing bathrooms. The worst. Kibou did not let me down in the loo department. Like the rest of the place, it was all very nicely done.
Let me say here that although 50% of me contains Japanese genes (thanks, Mom!), I’ve never been to Japan nor am I a Japanese food expert. I just know what I like. It was a struggle to choose things to order from Kibou’s menu because I wanted to try all of it. Had I brought biggest kid with us (like we did on our last review), we probably could have accomplished this. However, I decided to go with my top picks and look remorsefully at plates that passed by.
The sake flight I ordered landed on the table with no explanation from one of the servers. There is no description of which ones you’ll get, only that it’s the “bartenders [sic] choice.” I flagged down another server and asked if he could please tell me what the heck I was drinking, and he went through them with me. Despite the service hiccup, this was a fun way to try a variety of sakes, ranging from a dry house sake to a very sweet plum sake and an acidic yuzu sake. I think it would have been interesting to know which types of sake I should have with which foods to enjoy them the most. I just randomly sipped at them all in no particular order, like a sake sampling anarchist.
Dishes come as they’re ready, and they came out fairly quickly. The best part about ordering was our fantastic server who, with each item I ordered, gave a little fist pump and a “Yesss!” because I picked all of his favourites. We shared sweet, sticky, slightly smoky nasu dengaku (aubergine with a sweet miso glaze), which was delicious but surprisingly difficult to eat with chopsticks. We resorted to a knife and fork, as the ghosts of my ancestors wailed.
The chicken karaage was lightly covered in a beautifully seasoned crunchy coating, and was tender on the inside. Our favourite was the huge tempura dynamite prawns, coated in a sweet chilli sauce that didn’t overpower the delicate prawns.
Let’s talk about takoyaki. Takoyaki are walnut-sized balls of batter with a piece of octopus in the middle. It always has a centre that’s hotter than the sun. This is just a given. The takoyaki at Kibou had a nice flavour, but the middle didn’t have the characteristic soft, almost runny middle and it wasn’t molten hot (which was a good thing for my taste buds.) It came with sriracha mayo, but I would have preferred it with plain Kewpie along with all the other toppings. That’s just my taste though, other people might prefer the slight heat of the sriracha.
After a lot (A LOT) of dithering, we ordered a sushi platter. I was interested in trying a few of the Kibou signature sushi rolls, and the platter we chose was described as “a premium selection of our signature sushi and sashimi hand-picked by chef” on the menu. I thought this would mean samples of the different kinds of the signature sushi, but it was one volcano roll. This is entirely down to my misunderstanding - but be aware that this is what you get. Be greedier than me and just order the rolls separately. Note to self for next time. The volcano roll was deep fried and as my husband put it, it was “very Scottish.” (My other 50% is Scottish, so this was actually quite fitting.)
The rice was fantastic. Very well seasoned and perfectly cooked. The fish was fresh and a nice light change from our fried starter festival. At £50 for 20 pieces of sushi and sashimi, it’s the price you pay for decent sashimi grade fish. Yes you can get cheaper elsewhere, but you get what you pay for. Choose this and savour it, or choose the stuff that trundles by on a conveyor belt that’s probably been licked by a random kid somewhere round the bend.
At this point, we were pleasantly full and we had eaten roughly £58 worth of food, which is excellent for two people. The starters/sharers were generous and it ended up being exactly enough food for the two of us. The chicken katsu curry the person next to us ordered looked huge and he had to take half of it home in a container. Amateur.
I ordered dessert because of course I had to and it made my server really happy. The desserts on the website differ to the ones we had on our menu, so I had a roasted green tea creme brûlée rather than a matcha creme brûlée. It was light, perfectly smooth, and not too sweet. I don’t think it was made in the traditional way; it was unmoulded which you could never do if you made it in a ramekin. We think it was probably set in a ring mould and then torched with the sugar on top. These are the sorts of things we discuss at restaurants. “How did they do that?” is a popular dinner topic in our marriage. Anyway, it was a good ending to a good meal.
I left here wanting to come back to try the other dishes. My husband thought the menu was a little overwhelming - there’s a lot on there and it was difficult to choose. I’m curious to see if Kibou can do so many dishes to the same standard, which can be a challenge for places that have a varied menu. Specifically, things like ramen and katsu curry can be tricky to do well. (Side note: I wish they did pork tonkatsu with curry sauce. Everyone does chicken katsu with curry. Crispy pork is freaking delicious.)
This just gives us a good excuse to come back and bring the teenagers along, who were really miffed that we went without them.