ALBA London wins Restaurant of the Year, and has just added an Omakase counter

October 23rd, 2026 Food & Drink 2 minute read

On Thursday evening at the Royal Lancaster, ALBA London was named Bar or Restaurant of the Year at the Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Business Awards 2026. The restaurant opened in February 2025, and a lot has happened in eighteen months.

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This September, ALBA introduced a ten-seat Omakase counter with two chef-curated tasting menus, nine or twelve courses, at sittings of 6:30pm and 8:30pm, Tuesday to Saturday. Every seat is a front-row position at the counter, where each course is prepared and served directly in front of you.

Creative Chef Dmytro Pak developed the concept, arriving from UNI in Paris, a restaurant named for the ingredient at the heart of this menu. Japanese Head Chef Takuya Kaneko leads the counter each night, drawing on 20 years of experience, including eight years at Zuma. Together they serve Icelandic uni, bluefin otoro, Kristal and Beluga caviar, A5 Wagyu and the day’s finest catch, course by course.

The story behind the counter: along the Amalfi coast, fishermen have always eaten ricci di mare raw at the water’s edge, nothing between the urchin and the sea but a squeeze of lemon. The Japanese call the same creature uni. The instinct is identical on both coastlines: find the best thing the sea gives you, and do as little to it as possible. Omakase and crudo are, in ALBA’s words, the same philosophy in two languages.

The counter does not sit apart from the rest of the restaurant. It is the same idea ALBA was built on, told in a second accent, by a chef who has already lived in both. For those not booking the counter, the Japanese à la carte menu is available throughout the restaurant, Tuesday to Saturday.