Flesh & Buns

Name: Flesh & Buns
Address: 41 Earlham Street, London, Covent Garden, WC2H 9LX, UK
Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7632 9500
Rating: 8

Japanese Restaurant in Covent Garden

8 / 10 from 1 review

Address
41 Earlham Street
Covent Garden
London
WC2H 9LX

Map

History

Telephone
020 7632 9500

Cuisine
Japanese

Region
Covent Garden

Nearest Station
Covent Garden
0.10 miles

Website
http://fleshandbuns.com/

Opening Summary
Mon-Fri lunch service, 12-3pm
Mon-Tues 5pm-10pm
Weds-Fri: 5pm-11pm
Saturday: 12pm-11pm
Sunday 12pm-9.30pm

Edit Restaurant Information

The Bones Daddies team are behind this eatery offering DIY steamed buns - customers may build their own with fillings like slow-roasted shoulder of lamb and robata-grilled seabass with coriander miso. Also on the menu: sashimi, oysters, chicken yakitori, prawn tempura and desserts. Bookings taken and there's a full cocktail bar too. Head chef is Joe McCafferty, previously of Roka.

Flesh & Buns Picture Gallery

Homemade Shiso & Tarragon Soda

LYCHEE & POMEGRANATE MARTINI

Pink Grapefruit Negroni

All In London Review

Great food, good atmosphere. Go for the weekend bottomless brunch.

After the success of Bone Daddies, Flesh and Buns was established to further the spread of Japanese inspired junk food in London. And it works.

Deep in a basement on Covent Garden’s Earlham Street, the not quite titillatingly titled Flesh and Buns is really to be billed as ‘an experience’. And if, like us, you’re here for the bottomless brunch, then you can multiply the ‘experience’ levels by double. The modern, semi-industrial restaurant is set up with two long high tables running down the middle and a smattering of tables and booths along the edges. But with two hours of all you can eat dishes, buns and Prosecco to worry about, that’s about all the attention the style was going to get – until I hit the bathrooms. Covered with an array of images of uber-sexual Japanese Manga girls this out of sight awkward toilet was all a bit naff. The ‘rock ‘n’ roll izakaya’ shtick works in Bone Daddies but the toilets left Flesh and Buns feeling more Dad Rock.

For £39, the brunch menu allows you unlimited Prosecco, a cocktail on arrival, one of each of the four meat and bun dishes and all the small plates you can handle. It’s a bargain. A solid salmon sashimi but a rather dull ceviche provided a mixed start, before a portion of sticky Korean wings picked things up. Gloriously sweet and spicy, we could have kept ordering them but in their place came the chicken yakitori skewers, which were almost equally delicious in all their teriyaki-glazed glory.

The buns are no doubt the main event here and with a choice of grilled chicken, belly piglet, crispy mackerel and roasted duck with assorted pickles, glazes and sauces, there is something for everyone. Sweet, salty Unami hits you with every bite and the dry Prosecco on hand only keeps you going back quicker and quicker. If you like big flavours, heavy meat and a pure absence of subtlety then this is the brunch for you.

We finish the meal with doughnuts and sesame crème brulee, which although delicious, is almost forgotten following close to two hours of feasting. Eating the amount we ate outside of the bottomless brunch would cost a small fortune. So if you want to try a little of everything then that’s the way to do it. The experience was well worth trying, just head into it expecting to leave very full and very tipsy.

Reviewed by T.A.O
Published on Jun 5, 2015

In The News

Flesh & Buns launches a boozy Sunday Brunch

A bottomless brunch menu

Best For

London's best izakaya (Japanese pubs)

(Yep, we had to look it up, too).

From the same team as ramen joint Bone Daddies, Flesh & Buns has a fun atmosphere, helped by the DIY nature of the menu. Inspired by Taiwanese steamed buns, diners put together their own bun with their choice of meat or fish (the flesh). The drinks list has Japanese whisky, sake, plum wine and shochu.

The most fun you can have whilst eating in London

Chuckle as you chomp

At Flesh & Buns the signature dish are the Taiwanese-inspired steamed buns, which you then fill yourself with your choice of meat or fish. Customising food is a hugely enjoyable way to experience a restaurant, and even better, they do s’mores, the US campfire favourite. Here you get to toast them at the table, so you can experience the best ofs camping without having to brave the outdoors.