Kanada-Ya sets sights on Islington for Spring 2018 opening

Japanese ramen restaurant Kanada-Ya will launch its third site at a north London location in Spring 2018.

With an opening date planned for March, the brand has chosen Islington to launch the 55-cover, single-storey restaurant.

The new site will have a similar menu to the brand’s other restaurants, offering the same selection of ramen dishes (including tonkotsu, with pork bone broth, chashu pork belly, wood ear fungus, seaweed and spring onion; chashu-men with chashu pork collar; cold yuzu ramen with yuzu shoyu broth; chashu pork belly and rocket; truffle ramen with porcini truffle paste and white truffle oil) alongside new items like gyoza, an extended sake menu and a small list of Japan-inspired cocktails.

The restaurant makes its noodles onsite in a machine imported from Japan. Customers are able to request how firm they like their noodles, and they are cooked to order.

Kanada-Ya was founded in 2009 by Kanada Kazuhiro in Yukuhashi, Japan.  

The brand launched its first London site on St Giles High Street in 2014 opposite major Japanese ramen chain Ippudo. The second outpost opened on Piccadilly Circus’ Panton Street in 2015, before the company launched Machiya earlier this year, serving Japanese home cooking and patisserie.

The UK’s appetite for the Japanese noodle-broth dish has created a boom in the ramen market, with multiple operators now serving their take on the dish. Popular ramen restaurants in the capital currently include Ippudo, Shoryu, Tonkotsu, Bone Daddies, Yamagoya, Okan and Koi.