Handed the office Christmas party? Two floors at Canary Wharf, our East Village original in Stratford, and food made for the middle of the table.

Half the words are Spanish, half are Japanese, and some are both. The menu read the way our kitchen reads it: raw bar, robata, sushi counter.

Four years ago a small unit in Leyton. Now a two-floor restaurant on North Lane — raw bar downstairs, robata grill and a table for fourteen upstairs.

Vinicunca's mineral bands translated into a dining room. Chairs carved by an artist, ceramics thrown by hand in Moldova, and eighty-two covers in full view.

Not fusion in the 1990s sense. A genuine tradition with a century behind it — and once you understand the logic, ordering becomes much easier.