Not-so-raw at Roka

At the moment, you can't fail in London with a restaurant serving Japanese-style cuisine. Nobu continues to thrive. Zuma has just been named Restaurant of the Year by Tatler.

Even existing restaurants serving perfectly respectable food, such as Will Ricker's Great Eastern Dining Room in Hoxton, are switching over to Pan-Asian cuisine, following the success of E&O, Ricker's Notting Hill flagship. The only example I can think of that may not be doing so well is the unfortunately named Tsunami in Clapham. But a quick name change should see to that.

Roka on Charlotte Street is a case in point. Like Zuma, Roka is owned by Rainer Becker and, like Zuma, it's very popular with readers of Heat magazine, hoping to do a spot of rubber-necking.

Admittedly, I didn't actually see any D-list celebrities when I went there - not even a lousy Big Brother contestant - but that may have been because it was a Thursday lunchtime. I've no doubt that on a Friday evening, when the Shochu Lounge in the basement is full to bursting, you can't move for ex-members of the Hollyoaks cast.

As you enter the restaurant, you're immediately struck by the huge robata grill at the centre of the room - and this is the first indication that Roka is no ordinary Pan-Asian establishment.

Instead of the usual hotchpotch of soft-shell crab maki rolls and black cod in miso sauce, Roka specialises in Japanese barbecue. That's right, barbecue. I searched the menu in vain for nigiri and had to settle for chicken thighs in teriyaki and red chilli sauce.

They went down smoothly enough, but I couldn't help feeling that this was the Japanese chef's revenge on Will Ricker. If this Australian restaurateur can serve sushi at his various establishments, he must have reasoned, why can't I serve barbecue?

The interior, with its white, Pompidou Centre-style ceiling and honeyed-wood surfaces, is the work of a Japanese firm called Super Potato, the same outfit that did Zuma. Roka is smaller and less ostentatious than its Knightsbridge sibling, but it still has plenty of glamour, particularly for somewhere in this neck of the woods.

Charlotte Street is the London equivalent of New York's West 46th Street between Eighth and Ninth, a block boasting over 30 different eateries known as 'Restaurant Row'. There aren't quite that many on Charlotte Street, but you can always get a table somewhere, however busy.

The polite name for this part of London is Fitzrovia, but most people refer to it as 'North of Oxford Street'. In spite of the presence of the Sanderson on Berners Street, it's never really taken off, at least not in the big way that people used to predict.

I remember a style guru telling me to buy a house there in the Eighties, and some people still talk of it as an up-and-coming area, even today. But it's going to take more than an Ian Schrager hotel and a Rainer Becker restaurant to turn it into the new Marylebone. As far as I know, Guy and Madge have yet to look at any properties in the area.

The crowd at Roka on a Thursday lunchtime is exactly what you'd expect. All the hip professions are represented - media, advertising, film, television, music, PR. (Actually, is PR hip? Maybe not. PR has a PR problem.) All the men are in suits; none of them are wearing ties.

The great virtue of sushi - and the reason Japanese cuisine is popular with movers and shakers - is that you can 'eat and run', as they say on the other side of the Atlantic.

It arrives at your table quickly and you can dispose of one piece in a single bite. Judging from the quick turnover at Roka that's also true of Japanese barbecue. The kitchen staff certainly seem to be working their butts off. You can see them, beavering away at the robata grill, in the centre of the room.

It's hard to think of a bad word to say about Roka. It looks great, it attracts a hot crowd and the food is delicious. All it needs is for Russell Crowe to drop by and have a fist fight and it'll be set up for life.