ORIGIN OF HANNAH

Hannah Japanese Restaurant, the creation of Daisuke’s lifelong dream , was established in 2017. It was such a magical and surreal moment for Daisuke, to actually realise that it was really happening. 

 

Looking back, the journey of building up his own restaurant was never easy. Daisuke started it by running a small business at the Brick Lane food market on his day-offs, while still working as the Head Chef at Umu, trying to earn as much as possible to build a foundation for his restaurant in the future. Day by day, little by little, he brought Hannah to us. 

 

Hannah started out as an Izakaya restaurant, a casual Japanese restaurant and bar. With very limited funds, Daisuke and his team had to do everything by themselves, from the lighting to the interior decor. Being newly opened and located in quite a hidden area, Hannah found itself having trouble building up its name and reaching out to more customers. Also with average spending as little as £5 per person from the beginning, it left Hannah no room for marketing and PR efforts. The beginning of the business was even harder than what people said it was. A funny anecdote, one time Daisuke was caught off guard while changing the light bulbs on a ladder when a customer came into the restaurant. Yeah it was that unexpected. 

 

Over the years, the team kept refining their techniques and the restaurant, spending long hours working on the interior design and the menu. Gradually the team has achieved improvements to the restaurant, and gained more attention from the public through the word of mouth. Even during the pandemic, the team pivoted to takeout and delivery service, pushing themselves to try new things and to keep adapting to the circumstances. 

 

Now 5 years has gone by, and we all witnessed how Hannah has evolved into a fine-dining restaurant. Even though the style of the restaurant has changed a lot over the years, the one constant is how our regular customers keep coming back to Hannah, which is also one of the things that motivates the team the most. 

 

Daisuke and the team keeps creating exquisite tasting menus at Hannah, integrating both European and Japanese philosophy, using the best of local British produce, pairing with premium sake and wines specially from Daisuke’s selection, and presenting their creations on the Japanese ceramics and British antiques.

 

Hannah has never stopped striving for better and will keep aiming to provide an authentic, original, and memorable dining experience for its guests.