Good morning and welcome back to The Vittles Podcast! A reminder that you can listen to our back-catalogue of episodes with Songsoo Kim, Joké Bakare, Ravneet Gill, Ferhat Dirik, Gemma Bell, Ruby Tandoh, and more, both on here and wherever you get your podcasts.
Today’s episode is an interview with Shuko Oda, the co-creator and executive head chef of Koya, the Japanese udon noodle restaurant with sites in Soho, the City and Hackney.
When Koya arrived at 49 Frith Street in Soho, a whole 16 years ago, it replaced Alistair Little, the mighty influential temple of modern British cuisine. Since then, Koya itself has become a huge part of the modern London restaurant, revolutionising how Londoners think of Japanese food. It was the brainchild of former City trader John Devitt who, inspired by Paris’ Kunitoraya, installed Shuko alongside head chef Junya Yamazaki, who had both worked at Rose Bakery in Dover Street Market, to create a restaurant based around udon noodles. Soon, chefs and diners from all over London were flocking to Koya for its blackboard, where Shuko and Junya reinterpreted Japanese cuisine with British ingredients.
Since then, Shuko has gone onto open more Koyas, including Koya Ko in Hackney. It remains a restaurant that is principally Japanese – built on the success of its house-made udon noodles and dashi – but, as we talk about in the podcast, its storied blackboard menu of specials of small plates, salads and its relationships with some of Britain’s best suppliers, has made Koya a restaurant that exemplifies a type of modern London dining, and has allowed it to stand the test of time.
We hope you enjoy the episode.
Like our recent podcasts, this episode is free to listen to for all subscribers. You can listen to it here in Substack, on Apple Podcasts or through Spotify. If you’re so inclined, please like, share, rate and comment wherever you get your podcasts. A massive thanks as usual to Lucy Dearlove, our producer and to the whole team at Young Space for hosting our recording sessions.
In an exciting development you can now also watch this podcast on YouTube. For that, huge thanks to our videographer Zaineb Abelque and editor Callum Winter.
Thank you for listening, reading, watching and supporting our work. We'll be back again next month with a conversation between Adam and Will Gleave, the head chef at Sargasso in Margate, who will be talking about the early days of P. Franco, the role of Australians in London and getting out of the city. We’ll see you then.
Credits
The Vittles Podcast is presented by Vittles Restaurants editor Adam Coghlan.
Shuko Oda is the executive chef and co-founder of Koya, grew up between London, Los Angeles and Tokyo. Koya was born from a lack of – and yearning for – genuine, high-grade Japanese cuisine in London.
Lucy Dearlove is an audio producer, sound designer and writer originally from North East England, now based in St Leonards-on-Sea. Her food podcast, Lecker, is a two-time winner of the Fortnum & Mason Podcast of the Year Award.
The full Vittles masthead can be found here.
