99 Sushi Bar makes its UK debut in Mayfair
The Madrid-founded group opens an 85-cover flagship on Park Lane in November, its ninth international address and its first in Britain.
99 Sushi Bar & Restaurant opens its first UK site in November, an 85-cover flagship at 22 Park Lane inside the London Hilton on Park Lane.
The Mayfair address gives the Madrid-founded group a base a short walk from Hyde Park Corner. It is the chain's ninth international outpost and the first to open in Britain, after two decades spent building a footprint across southern Europe and the Gulf.
The layout splits across three spaces. A 60-cover main dining room serves the core menu of contemporary Japanese cooking built on premium ingredients. A four-seat sushi counter puts chef-led preparation in front of a handful of diners at a time. A separate 19-cover cabaret bar, restricted to guests aged 21 and over, adds a later, louder room to the same address.
An urban lifestyle destination rather than a straightforward restaurant.
Outdoor terraces carry sculptural bonsai installations, while the interiors lean on mirrored surfaces, gold detailing, velvet upholstery in purple and crimson, and amber lighting. Monica de Hostos of Borco Group led the design, working to a brief that founder and chief executive Jaime Castaneda has described as an “urban lifestyle destination” rather than a straightforward restaurant.
Beyond the two dining rooms, the site can hold up to 185 guests for cocktail receptions and private events, a scale aimed as much at corporate bookings around Mayfair and Park Lane as at walk-in diners.
A Madrid brand built over two decades
Brothers Fernando and Pedro de Leon founded 99 Sushi Bar in Madrid in 2005. The group has since opened in Barcelona, Marbella, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Monaco, Rabat and Budapest, positioning itself in each city as a high-end Japanese address rather than a casual sushi chain.
Its Abu Dhabi restaurant has held a Michelin star for three consecutive years, the clearest signal so far that the kitchen model travels beyond Spain. The brand name nods to a philosophy that “absolute perfection remains unattainable,” with 99% treated as the realistic ceiling to aim for on any given night.
Doha next on an expanding map
London is not the end point. The group has a further opening planned in Doha, continuing a pattern of alternating between European capitals and Gulf cities rather than committing to one region.
For Mayfair, the arrival adds another high-end Japanese name to a strip of Park Lane hotels already competing on food as much as on rooms, following Endo Kazutoshi's omakase counter in Chelsea earlier this year. Whether the 21-and-over cabaret bar draws a different crowd than the sushi counter will likely shape how the site is remembered a year from now.
