The Ninth

The Ninth may be a Charlotte Street veteran these days, but Jun Tanaka’s exquisite cooking remains as fantastic as ever, and for our money The Ninth is still one of the best restaurants in these parts.

Sultry browns dominate the dining room, from dark wood floors and chestnut tables to a plush, chocolate brown leather banquette, which runs the length of the wall. The Ninth feels chic and refined but still relaxed - Tanaka’s background is very white tablecloth but there are none here, and the walls are an abstract collage of old plaster and exposed brickwork. The service too is just the right balance of attentive and friendly.

We kick things off with an elegant plate of torched mackerel, each dainty mackerel slice adorned with a sliver of kohlrabi and a shard of pickled lemon. It’s simple, but exquisite. Two pasta courses raise the bar even further - Tanaka’s signature dish of pipe rigati pasta with winter truffle and egg yolk is another example of less is more done well, and jet black cuttlefish malloreddus comes with crispy squid and bottarga, delving into multiple layers of saline funkiness.

Two main dishes - roast cod, ‘nduja, panisse and Jerusalem artichoke, and roast duck with radicchio, pear and daikon, were well executed too, though perhaps they don’t quite achieve the heights of the pasta. The cod had a perfect flake, and the duck was a beautiful rose pink, balanced gently amid sweet and bitter notes from the accompaniments. At £35 and £34 respectively, though, they aren’t cheap. Dessert portions are hefty, and another taste of the pain perdu with vanilla ice cream - also a Tanaka signature - reveals that, spoiler alert, it’s still delicious.

We suspect that people often sleep on The Ninth, because there’s always something new and exciting opening nearby. On this evidence, Tanaka will be here for a long time to come - we’ll be back for more pasta and pain perdu.

The origin stories of some restaurant’s monikers can be complex affairs, but those who don’t have much time for laboured ‘concepts’ will be happy to know that the premise of The Ninth is pleasingly simple - it’s called such because it is the ninth restaurant that chef Jun Takana has worked in across his more than 20 year career as a chef.

This is Takana’s first solo venture however, but he has some great kitchen experience to draw on, having previously worked under Phil Howard at The Square, The Roux brothers at Le Gavroche and Marco Pierre White at his eponymous restaurant, where Takana was first trained in classical French cuisine. It should come as little surprise then that The Ninth boasts a seasonally changing menu of both classical and contemporary French cuisine, although it is without the pomp and circumstance that you might expect from someone with Takana’s training.

On the menu, you can expect to find starters such as roast partridge with pickled autumn vegetables or flamed mackerel with red meat radish and lemon. Main courses meanwhile feature the likes of Iberico pork with salsa verde, and salt crusted sea bass served alongside bitter leaves. There is also a separate section of fresh pasta dishes including langoustine ravioli with green tomatoes and tarragon. To round off your meal, take your pick from sweet puddings such as pain perdu with a tonka bean ice cream, or take advantage of a pick ‘n’ mix of cheeses.

It is fair to say that dining at The Ninth won’t necessarily come cheap, but those on a budget can visit at lunchtime, when the set lunch menu is priced at £30 for two courses and £35 for three.