Japan Centre, London’s only dedicated Japanese Food Hall, will be celebrating its 40th birthday this July with a series of promotions, masterclasses, tastings and more. Running from the 10th – 24th July the Shaftesbury Avenue location will showcase their passion and expertise in Japanese cuisine and culture.
Set up by entrepreneur Tak Tokumine in 1976 who started with a small bookshop, the Japan Centre has since grown to become one of the largest and most influential Japanese stores in London, adding a food hall, bakery, deli, restaurant, home-ware department and online service to its portfolio.
On Sunday 10th July the birthday celebrations will launch with 10% off everything in store and online. For the following two weeks 40 of Taks all time favourite products will be on promotion with savings of up to 40%.
On top of the promotions, the Japan Centre will host a series of free masterclasses and sampling sessions as well as tastings from some of their notable suppliers. Amongst the list of events will be two ‘Miso, Tofu and Seaweed’ tastings from Clearspring and four Gekkeikan Sake samplings. There will also be ticketed masterclasses where guests can learn the art of sushi, matcha and sake as well as take part in a class run by Masterchef finalist Andrew Kojima, where attendees can learn how to cook with miso and 5th taste, umami.
For a full list of events and to book please here.
To run alongside the 40th birthday celebrations there will be 40 prizes available to win in a prize draw including 3 pairs of return flights to Japan, a Clearspring luxury sushi making kit and cinema tickets. To enter into the draw that opens on June 10th please head to the website. The Japan Centre will also be posting specially created video content and recipes to watch on their social media channels, @JapanCentre, throughout July.
The stores sister restaurants Ichiryu Udon House and Shoryu Ramen will be joining in on the celebrations by offering free sake to all diners on Sunday 10th July and a limited edition Japan Centre cocktail for the whole two week celebrations. The ‘AKA Forty’ will be a unique Japanese twist on the classical Negroni, which has been aged for 40 days. The bright red colour of the drink symbolising the rising sun of Japan, and will be finished off with a secret ingredient.