Best Sushi and Japanese Restaurants in Cheltenham
Cheltenham is a long way from Tokyo, but the town now has four Japanese restaurants worth booking. Where to go for sushi, ramen and tabletop grills.
Cheltenham is two hours from the sea and a long way from Tokyo, so nobody expects much from Japanese food here.
That expectation is out of date. The town now has four Japanese restaurants worth booking, one of which scores higher with us than all but a handful of restaurants in Cheltenham, of any cuisine.
They also do genuinely different things. One is tabletop grilling and hotpot, where you cook your own dinner. One is a busy modern all-rounder. One is a ramen specialist. One is cheap, fast and better than it needs to be.
If you are looking for the best sushi in Cheltenham, or a bowl of ramen on a wet Tuesday, here is where to go and what each place is actually for.
Where can you get the best sushi in Cheltenham?
KIBOU is the straightforward answer for sushi, and No.131 is the one most people do not know about.
KIBOU sits in the Regent Arcade, scores 8.2, and holds a 4.7 Google rating across more than seventeen hundred reviews. That is by some distance the largest body of positive feedback of any Japanese restaurant in town.
The menu runs wide: sushi and sashimi, ramen, katsu curry, small plates. Wide menus often mean a kitchen doing nothing especially well, but KIBOU is the exception. It is consistent in a way that busy restaurants usually are not.
The upstairs room at No.131 on the Promenade is the other option, a Japanese fine dining room above a contemporary British restaurant, and the sushi there is the more serious version. Fewer people know it exists, which is to your advantage.
Nagomi, for cooking your own dinner
Nagomi scores 8.7, the highest of any Japanese restaurant in Cheltenham and among the highest of any restaurant in our guide. It holds a 4.8 rating across more than eleven hundred reviews.
It is Japanese and Korean tabletop cooking: grills and hotpots built into the table, premium meats brought out raw, and you doing the work.
Who it suits
Groups, obviously. Anyone who finds a normal restaurant meal a bit passive. It is also unexpectedly good for a date, because there is always something to do with your hands.
Less suitable if you want a quiet dinner or you are in a hurry. This is a two-hour meal minimum and the whole point is the pace.
What to know before you go
Book it. A restaurant with tabletop grills has a fixed number of tables and no ability to squeeze anyone in.
Wear something you do not mind smelling of grilled meat afterwards. That is not a criticism, it is simply how the format works.
Wakame, for ramen
Wakame is on the High Street, scores 7.8 and holds a 4.5 rating across more than four hundred reviews.
This is the ramen specialist. Rich broths, proper small plates, and a relaxed room with none of the ceremony you sometimes get at Japanese restaurants trying to be an experience.
What to order
The ramen, clearly. But the small plates are where a lot of the pleasure is, and it is worth ordering two or three across the table before the bowls arrive.
Ramen is a bad dish to share and a good dish to eat quickly. Order one each, eat it while it is hot, and do not linger over it.
Kokoro, for a cheap, good lunch
Kokoro scores 8.1 with a 4.5 rating and does Japanese-Korean fusion at prices that undercut everywhere else on this list.
Sushi, katsu curries, bibimbap, bento boxes. It is fast, it is inexpensive, and the quality is well above what the price suggests.
Who it suits
Lunch. Shopping trips. Feeding teenagers. Anyone who wants a decent Japanese meal without making an evening of it.
It is not the place for a special occasion, and it does not pretend to be.
Is the sushi in Cheltenham actually any good?
Yes, with one honest caveat.
Cheltenham is inland, and no restaurant this far from a fishing port is going to match what you would get in a coastal town or a major city with a serious fish market. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling something.
What Cheltenham has is a small number of kitchens that take sourcing seriously and do not overreach. KIBOU is consistent because it does not try to serve forty kinds of sashimi. No.131's upstairs room aims higher and mostly gets there.
The practical advice: eat sushi earlier in the week rather than later, and order what the restaurant is confident about rather than the most exotic thing on the menu. Both rules apply anywhere inland.
What is the difference between all these places?
They are less interchangeable than the label suggests.
Nagomi is an activity as much as a meal. You cook, it takes two hours, and you leave having done something.
KIBOU is the reliable all-rounder. If you cannot agree on what you want, this is the one that will satisfy everyone.
Wakame is a specialist. Go for ramen, not for a survey of Japanese cuisine.
Kokoro is fuel. Good fuel, cheap, quick.
No.131 upstairs is the occasion option, and the most expensive.
Three of the five are in the town centre within a few minutes of each other, so you can decide late and still walk there.
Where can you get Korean food in Cheltenham?
Nagomi and Kokoro, and that is currently the list.
Cheltenham has no dedicated Korean restaurant, which is the one real gap in the town's east Asian offering. What it has instead is two kitchens that cook Korean dishes alongside Japanese ones and take them seriously rather than treating them as a novelty.
Nagomi is the better of the two for it. The tabletop grill format is Korean at heart, and the hotpots are the closest thing in town to a proper Korean night out.
Kokoro handles the cheaper end. Bibimbap done properly, served fast, at lunch prices.
If a dedicated Korean restaurant ever opens here it will do well. Until then, these two cover it.
Do you need to book?
For Nagomi, always. For the others, weekends only.
Nagomi's tabletop format means limited covers and long sittings, and it is comfortably the hardest table on this list to get at short notice. Book several days ahead for a weekend.
KIBOU is large enough to absorb walk-ins most of the time, though the Regent Arcade location makes it busy on Saturdays. Wakame and Kokoro are usually fine.
As with every restaurant in town, March changes the rules. Race week fills everything, so if you are visiting during the Cheltenham Festival, book before you arrive.
What about vegetarians and vegans?
Better catered for than at most Japanese restaurants, though it takes a little care.
Kokoro and KIBOU both run vegetarian sushi and katsu options as proper menu items rather than afterthoughts. Wakame can do vegetarian ramen, but ask about the broth, because a great deal of ramen that looks vegetarian is built on a pork or fish base.
Nagomi is the hardest of the group for a non-meat eater, given the format is grilled meat at your table. Not impossible, but not the obvious choice.
Our guide to the best vegan and vegetarian restaurants in Cheltenham covers stronger options if that is the priority.
Where to start
Four Japanese restaurants, all scoring 7.8 or above, and a fifth room hiding upstairs on the Promenade. For an inland town of this size, that is a good position.
Start at Nagomi if you want the most memorable meal and have two hours. KIBOU if you want the safest good decision. Wakame if it is raining and you want ramen. Kokoro if you want lunch and change from a twenty.
And if you want the serious sushi, go upstairs at No.131 and tell people about it, because not enough of them know.
Browse every restaurant we have scored, or read our guide to where to stay in Cheltenham if you are planning a trip around it.
Meta Description: The best sushi and Japanese restaurants in Cheltenham, from tabletop hotpot to ramen and Regent Arcade sushi. A local's guide to where to eat.