Visiting: Koya
After returning from a trip to Japan, all that I craved was a place where I could eat bouncy udon noodles in a clean, clear broth where the delicious ingredients could speak for themselves. Koya is that place - and living round the corner means that I usually visit very frequently. Founded by Shuko Oda and John Devitt, the small space (appropriate for a name that means hut/little house) on Frith Street in Soho, feels like an invitation into a home with friends ready and waiting to nourish your soul with real food. I was lucky enough to meet Shuko one morning at Stoney Street restaurant where I work (she was delivering Miso), and her warm and generous spirit was everything I associate with Koya.
There is understandably always a long queue, so I always aim to visit in off-peak times either for a late lunch around three or early supper around five. The long bar-table dining style creates a casual environment where I feel quite comfortable eating on my own, peering over the counter to watch the busy chefs lovingly cook the hand-made noodles and delicately build each dish. But it’s also a special place to bring others, co-ordinating the side-by-side seating and passing bowls up and down the bench. I usually go for the Yasai Ten Hiya-Atsu - cold udon in hot broth with vegetable tempura (or sometimes prawn), as I love dipping the cold udon down into the steaming bonito broth. I’ve also tried the Saba (hot udon in hot broth with smoked mackerel and green leaves), Buta Miso (hot udon in hot broth with pork and miso) and a variety of their incredible small plates. Make sure to keep an eye on their creative specials board and try their house kombucha which always uses seasonal ingredients - my favourite was gooseberry!
Unfortunately Koya celebrated their ten year anniversary in lockdown, but I know I’ll be joining many many people, in potentially the longest queue ever, to welcome them back once this is all over. Until then, Koya have posted wonderful instructions for making your own udon and other recipes on their instagram.
If you’d like to learn more about Udon and the development of Koya, there’s a great article from the Financial Times food and drink magazine. “Making udon noodles requires muscle. Strong flour is mixed with salt water to create a stiff dough that must be worked until gluten develops and it becomes elastic. This elasticity in the cooked udon is everything. There is little flavour to the noodle — the whole point of its creamy blandness is to convey the taste of broth or sauce to the mouth — but, as in most Asian cuisines, texture is as vital a component of flavour as smell is to westerners. The ideal udon noodle must have koshi. There is no completely satisfactory translation into English, but it means something like “strength” or “firmness”. The noodle must have bounce, resilience, it must bite back. Oda-san struggles to express the idea but, she says, when they launched Koya, they advertised in Japanese-language newspapers for staff who were “cheerful and have koshi”. It’s a lovely thought. Without bounce and resilience, who could survive life front-of-house?”
On a design note - here is another interview with Shuko Oda where she talks about the staff uniforms at Koya, which consists of a cotton shirt and an apron. The shirt is one “that people wear for summer festivals in Japan and sometimes by construction workers as well. I’ve found that it’s perfect for wearing in our hot steamy kitchens. The apron was designed by us, made and dyed in a small family-run dye house in Kyoto. It starts out as a strong indigo and then gradually fades into a worn out denim colour - it’s beautiful at every stage. We send them back to be re-dyed every couple of years, and have often stitched them up when torn.”
Koya Soho - 50 Frith Street, W1D 4SQ
Koya City - 10-12 Bloomberg Arcade, EC4N 8AR
@koyalondon