Tempo reviewed by Giles Coren for The Saturday Times, 4 December 2010

"That's brilliant for Mayfair. And even better for Mayfair is the charming, rather laid-back service and the modern, 'chicchetti'-focused menu, which encourages the table-wide sharing approach that is almost the only way that I can bear to eat these days." 


Giles Coren, The Saturday Times, 4 December 2010

Tempo Review In Metro by Marina O'Loughlin on 1st of December 2010

"If Tokyo’s anything to go by, the Japanese 

love Italian food. Maybe it’s a noodle thing. New Mayfair swankpot Tempo’s kitchen is headed up by one Yoshi Yamada but apart from some very sashimi-ish carpaccios of fish and a belter of a lemon tart, the flavour is Italian to the core. [...] butternut squash risotto with an astonishing depth of buttery flavour; a dense, chewy but excellently flavoured rabbit and pistachio tortelli in a quantity of sage butter (Yamada sure likes his dairy). There are so-now cicchetti –Venetian-style small plates – of spicy n’duja crostini, seared octopus with apple and pomegranate. These are also available in the upstairs bar, which is beautiful – a luxurious, creamy rococo room and that rarest of London things, a hidden gem."


Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/lifestyle/848925-tempo-is-an-italian-restaurant-well-worth-going-out-of-your-way-for#ixzz16sSwXtKU

Article on Tempo in Tatler Magazine by Jeremy Wayne, December 2010 issue

"Like most Japanese, Yamada is enamoured of all things Italian, an seems to have mastered the art of Italian cooking, sprinkling his menu with dishes from the diary-rich north all the way to Calabria in the South. [...] The food runs the gamut. Cicchetti, those must-have little snacks, come first-bruschetta of roasted peppers and burrata or a saucer of featherlight fried squid and whitebait. Lovely. Carpaccio is expertly done, not sliced wafer-thin and all the better for it: beef with hazelnuts and Parmesan, sworfish with capers and olives."

Tempo Review In The London Magazine, December 2010

 ‎"Our favourites included scallops with golden beetroot and a chili 'kick', and seared octopus with apple and pomegranate, while our gnocchi were so light and fluffy it's amazing they didn't spontaneously levitate on the way from kitchen to the table. My companion's pork belly main course was melt in the mouth, with a deep rich flavour and no fat whatsoever. [...] 

Tempo has achieved its aim of being a an intimate, upscale but reasonably priced neighbourhood 
restaurant" 

Tempo Review in Tatler Magazine by Jeremy Wayne, November 2010

"Yoshi Yamada, formerly chef at St Alban, disappeared when the restaurant closed at the end of last year. Now he's resurfaced at Tempo, a new authentic Italian, bang in the heart of Mayfair. Irresistible northern Italian dishes, made with rare skill and served with bags of charm."

Tempo Restaurant in Food & Travel Magazine by Rachel Truman / October Issue

"Yoshi Yamada has created an approachable, good value and appealing menu where sharing is very much encouraged. Perfectly crisp calamari and whitebait, oozing burrata Pugliese with tender baby artichokes and swordfish carpaccio, cut through with citrus segments and slivers of fennel, preceded plates of the lightest gnocchi known to man. [...] Special mention should go to the pastry chef, also Japanese, whose terrific breads and delicate lemon tart reveal a deftness of touch"

"20 Restaurants for Right Now" by John Mariani in Virtuoso Life Magazine - September/October 2010 Issue

"In a city ravenous for modern cucina italiana, Tempo opened with a bang and immediately drew a chic Mayfair crowd that dresses to dine in a room done in Amalfi Coast blue accentuated with tables of hand-painted glass. [...] Specialities are small-plate antipasti like seared octopus and pomegranate salad, but this being Britain, there is succulent roast rib eye of Scottish beef with bone marrow, potatoes, and kale."

Interview with Henry Togna and Yoshi Yamada in Mayfair Times / September Issue

"The most important thing is the food has to be excellent. The second - which is only a degree under - it has to be consistent. Then we have to have the ambiance and, of course, the service. And if we do that, people will inevitably come here. So Yoshi and I have done a deal: we're in a no compromise situation. Quality is everything."  Henry Togna

"Small plates providing big taste at Tempo on Curzon Street, London" - Entree Newsletter, Sept - Oct 2010

"Curzon Street in London has always been a favorite of ours [...] Now, we have another excellent reason to go there seeing as our friend, the dashing Henry Togna, former owner of the iconic townhouse hotel 22 Jermyn Street, has opened Tempo at 54 Curzon Street, a cozy and casual new restaurant serving up modern Italian cooking. [...] Result: a very snazzy crowd has beat a path to the door of Tempo and they seem over the moon with Head Chef Yoshi Yamada's Eastern sensibility intertwined with Togna's warmth and devotion to top drawer Italian cuisine and Dydak's graciousness. Oh, almost forgot: desserts, so much a part of a quality Italian dining experience, are memorable at Tempo. Mercifully, a lunch or dinner at Tempo will not require you to second mortgage your estate."

Anna del Conte Review

"A delicious lunch at your restaurant which is so attractive in its chicness and its friendliness - a difficult balance to achieve with such success. The food is indeed memorable. I know now where to go when I want to have a perfect lunch in a perfect ambience with perfect company"

Anna del Conte, Italian food writer and author of "Risotto with Nettles"

Page One London Review by Fay Maschler

Time Out Review by Euan Fergurson

"Italians in Mayfair are like fried chicken shops - there's one on every street, and locals visit them when they lack the imagination to go anywhere else. The opening of a new one, then, shouldn't create too much excitement, but on paper this one's a bit different: the chef is from Japan. [...] 


The pan-Italian menu read beautifully in its simplicity. The best dishes we tried were from the cicchetti (small plates) section, including crostini di N'duja, with chilli-laced Calabrian pork sausage; and a crostini di lardo, draped with a chiffon-thin slice of seasoned fat that merely whispered of its porcine origin before melting on the tongue. A main of sea bream with caponata was that and no more - a simple, warm Sicilian salad of aubergine and tomato with a perfectly crisped piece of fish. [...] We looked at descriptions of other dishes with envy - quail salad, dandelion and pancetta, listed under antipasti, and venison carpaccio with pickled summer vegetables caught the eye.

We then had a bit of a wait for a dessert menu, but a berry tart picked things right back up, despite the somewhat naff oversized plate it came on. The pastry was delicate, the berries in tip-top condition and the scoop of raspberry sorbet on the side a sublime burst of summer fruit.

Tempo is pretty decent value for this part of Mayfair, and the wine list draws mainly from Italy, staying within sensible price limits."

Evening Standard Review by Fay Maschler

"Tempo is Japan's piece of Italy" - Evening Standard Review


"[...] Now at Tempo, a Japanese chef [...] is bringing his Eastern sensibility to an Italian restaurant that replaces what was once a melted cheese and peppermill-waving establishment called Franks. [...] The ground-floor dining space is made agreeably eye-catching by chairs upholstered in turquoise velvet surrounding glass-topped tables with the look of marbled end papers — maybe a nod to Heywood Hill bookshop across the road. On the first floor is a comfortable bar in a room with its original 19th- century wedding cake mouldings carefully restored where light dishes are served all day. [...]


Of three we tried, the best was insalata di polpo where crisp octopus tentacles neglected to predict the winner of the World Cup but did taste delectable, helped along by the presence of slender batons of raw apple and a scattering of flat-leaf parsley as well as the pomegranate seeds. Bruschetta of crushed fresh peas with mint and pecorino scored higher marks for prettiness than flavour; a fritto misto of just two ingredients, squid and whitebait, was rather pedestrian.


Joe thought that a carpaccio of swordfish would be a good test of a Japanese chef so that was his choice of first course. Mine was salad of Italian summer tomatoes. Transparent slices of raw fish shaded with grey and blushed with pink dotted with black olives, capers and some unheralded dill (a dubious addition to most dishes in my view) looked as pretty as a Japanese watercolour from the Meiji period but sadly the fish had no intrinsic flavour. The tomato salad, a mixture of red, yellow and purple varieties, was dressed with noble balsamic vinegar and shavings of Parmesan. It was wonderful; summer in a soup plate, the apotheosis of delicious simplicity — and £6.50, which seems a very fair price.


Tortelli with wild rabbit, pistachio and sage sported an imaginative combination of ingredients as well as delicate pasta coverings. Joe rather wished that the larger serving at £12.50 had been, how shall we say, larger? Grilled baby chicken served with barley and wild rocket was another unexpected and beneficial coming together of component parts and the chicken itself scored on a generous relationship of delicious charred skin to rather too innocent flesh. As “contorni” we ordered zucchini to test the chef’s frying skills and were rewarded with zucchini tempura. The two cultures really do intertwine most satisfactorily.


[...] Lemon tart was a strong contender in my best Lemon Tart of the Decade competition. Not a trace of cornflour, just a hammering zing of citrus and fine, friable pastry.


The wine list features top small producers from Italy. The Tuscan Fontodi Meriggio suggested by Joanna was pleasing but maybe not quite £39 good. I am looking forward to more experimentation in the bar before and after going to the movies at The Curzon Mayfair. 
Tempo is a terrific addition to the street."


15th of July 2010

Tempo Head Chef Yoshi Yamada

Yoshi Yamada

In the 5 years he has been in the UK, multi-lingual Economics graduate Yoshi Yamada worked at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea for 18 months, before joining Corbin & King’s St Alban as sous chef, running all the sections in this modern Mediterranean restaurant. Previously, in Japan, he worked for L’Atelier de Robuchon and managed the patisserie section of an exclusive Italian restaurant in Tokyo. Always enamoured with Italy, he spent 4 years cooking in top restaurants in Naples (2 Michelin star Don Alfonso), Sardinia and Florence. During this time, he was exposed to a variety of regional cooking styles: Southern Italian, Sardinian, modern Italian seafood and rustic Tuscan trattoria cooking, especially meats and breads.

Tempo Wild Rabbit Tortelli

Tempo Carciofi Marinati

Tempo Fresh Cornish Crab Tagliolini

Tempo Costata di Manzo

Tempo Restaurant

Tempo Bar

Tempo Bar

Tempo Private Room

The first floor Private Room has a warm and welcoming ambience with its rich colours and period features. The room is suitable for breakfast meetings, lunches and dinners seating up to 24 people or receptions and private parties up to 45. There is no room hire charge, although minimum spends do apply.

For further information, please contact us on 020 7629 2742 or info@tempomayfair.co.uk

Tempo Bar Bellini

Tempo Bar

Tempo Bar

Tempo Mirrors