North Hampshire offers up the delights of the orient in gourmet style

Every year as we watch the final of UK Masterchef we say that we must keep an eye on the winner and check out whatever restaurant he or she opens in future. We’d never managed it, though. Such outings always seemed to require an overnight stay; not something we wanted to do just to try a restaurant. Thanks to 2023 winner Chariya Khattiyot, however, we had no excuse. She’s a local who’s just opened her new restaurant in Alton, half an hour’s drive away.

Khao Soi by Chariya has the vibrant, informal atmosphere and the reasonable price point of your local Thai restaurant, but with a sophistication of spicing that surpasses any of the attempts at Thai that I’ve tasted outside of London. (There are now, sadly, a lot of pubs churning out what they call “Thai” but are deeply average stir fries with commercial packaged sauces poured over them.) It’s also far more than Thai. Chariya’s differentiator on Masterchef was oriental fusion; starting with her Thai heritage and then weaving in elements from Japan, where she lived for a while, and Southeast Asian countries. That’s exactly what she’s serving up in Alton.

I loved the mash-up of traditions. I started with a bao bun (Chinese) stuffed with Korean fried chicken, then moved on to quintessentially Thai khao soi topped with Korean beef. To be honest, I’m not enough of an expert on any of these cuisines to be able to differentiate the origin point of those elements without the help of the menu. All I can tell you is that it was all delicious, with distinct layers of flavour and spice that I found pleasantly hot but not over the top. My husband, who is not fond of spicy food, was game enough to give it a go and thought it was “OK”. Which, given his starting point, equates to a very good from your typical British diner.

He was most impressed by the desserts, where you leave the spice behind and just get the sophisticated flavour profile. We ordered one coconut ice cream and one yuzu cheesecake and shared them. Not only were they both delicious on their own, but they worked surprisingly well together. I am generally not a fan of set cheesecakes, but Chariya manages to get a density and high-fat mouthfeel that I associate with the baked version, without the insubstantial aeration or the gelatinous firming agents than normally turn me against the set varieties.

Chariya was visible on the pass throughout the evening, in complete control. While it’s not a completely open kitchen, you can see enough to realise they’re all working at full capacity to move the food out to a packed dining room. The crowd out front, in fact, was the only negative of the evening. Perfectly understandable for a start-up restaurant, they’ve exploited every inch of space here, and it was good to see every seat filled. But the walls, ceiling and floors are all hard surfaces with nothing to absorb sound and the din was bordering on unpleasant. We needed to raise our voices to talk to each other, but we were only a few inches away from the couple on the next table, so didn’t really want to. You’ll get great food here, but it’s not a place for a quiet, romantic evening out.

If we want Oriental food in than more elegant environment, we can drive the same distance south and go to Kyoto Kitchen in Winchester. Ironically for a couple who rarely eats non-European cuisines out, we were enjoying a Japanese feast the night before Chariya’s Southeast Asian fusion. Kyoto Kitchen has moved premises since the last time we visited, evolving from a small, tightly-packed, informal spot to an entire building with elegant interiors and three times their original covers. 

While they deliver fabulous sushi, Kyoto Kitchen’s strongest suit is its chef’s menus. Because all of the dishes are shared, the more people you have, the more food you get to try. We’d loved this option for two people on past visits; it was even better with four. At just £49.94 per person for five courses, with an extra £14 for sake pairings, it’s an absolute steal compared to any Japanese restaurant in London.

You start with some lovely nibbles to fire the appetite: marinated and fried bits of chicken, parchment-thin cured salmon, vegetable gyoza. Next comes a delicate beef tataki (raw, cured) with vegetable and prawn tempura so fresh out of the fryer you need to sit and admire the presentation for a while so they can cool down. Roll on the sushi and sashimi course, displaying the knife skills of the chefs at work at the open sushi counter in back. This is where we usually concentrate our efforts at Japanese restaurants, but a tasting menu means we were building up to the stir fries … chicken teriyaki and salmon miso … with rice.

This is where tastes really vary. As a lover of spice, I’d say that these Japanese stir fries are too mild to be worth my time. Give me Chariya’s explosion of flavours any time! But the gentle delicacy of these dishes is much more to my husband’’s taste. The evening ends with a platter of fruit, dorayaki (sweet pancakes) and mochi (sticky rice parcels). It’s a well-judged balance across the five courses. You emerge full, and completely satisfied, but not stuffed.

When he heard it was our first time in the new place, the manager gave us a little tour and painted his vision for the future. There’s an enhance chef’s table experience to come back at the sushi bar. They’re developing a Japanese courtyard garden with appropriate plants and trees that will serve as a cocktail space, or even dining on warm nights. (If we ever see any of those again.) They’re also planning some hotel rooms upstairs would allow us both to enjoy that sake flight, rather than the designated driver taking a few cheeky sips. The little bit I sampled impressed me with its variety and the way it complemented the food; I’d really like to go back and indulge fully.

So, whether your taste is for spicy Asian fusion in an informal setting, or a more sophisticated take on the subtle flavours of Japan, there are some surprising choices in North Hampshire. We are a lot more than cozy pubs, Sunday lunches and Hampshire Hog roasts.

Winchester, Kyoto and Tolkien combine for the perfect date night

Your sense of distance changes depending on your surroundings.

Growing up in St. Louis, pretty much every activity (including school) was half an hour away by car. Life was much the same in Dallas. Weekends regularly included two- or three-hour drives to local points of interest, and we thought nothing of a 300-mile weekend road trip to Chicago.

When I first started working in England, I brought that attitude with me. My first assignment came with a company car and a credit card for unlimited fuel. I used it. More than 500 miles a weekend wasn't unusual as I worked through every significant stately home, charming village, ruined abbey and dramatic landscape in reach.

More than 20 years on, and living permanently in the UK for 15, I've embraced a more British attitude. Infrastructure and expense are two culprits. Going anywhere in this country usually means sitting in traffic that will make the journey twice as long as it should be. Once you get there, parking will be hard to find, perilous to fit your car into and ridiculously expensive, and fuel is pricey. None of which, however, should deter me from weekend jaunts to our county town of Winchester, just 23 miles away.

Every time I go, I think to myself that I should go more. After this weekend, I'm making more of an effort to move our occasional "movie date nights" there. Winchester's Everyman Cinema is a marvellously sophisticated way to consume a film, and Kyoto Kitchen has been reviewed as one of the best Japanese restaurants in the country.

Each of the 28 Everyman cinemas in the UK is different, because they like to give new purpose to historic old buildings, but I think the ethos across all of them is the same. Intimate and sophisticated, they're more like some mogul's private screening room than a modern cinema. The manager gives a personal welcome and introduction to each film. Premium seats are oversized armchairs and sofas, and the lobby is a cocktail bar. They even deliver freshly-made pizzas to the seats. Clearly, this appeals to a rather niche target market: the pre-film advertising was for Sipsmith Gin, Hermes scarves and Green and Black chocolate. The only drawback is availability. With just two screens (in Winchester) rotating an handful of films, plus theatrical, operatic and ballet live broadcasts, you need to work to their schedule and booking in advance is usually a requirement.

We were there for Tolkien, the new biopic looking at how the youth of the master of epic literature shaped his writing. The difference between the mainstream reviewers' reactions (lukewarm to aggressively negative) and ours (highly positive) shows why I pay little attention to professional critics. I am clearly not their target market. Most of them griped about the film lacking daring or innovation, or how it was too pedestrian in its pacing. I saw an old-fashioned (in the best possible way) tale of love and friendship, and of dreams overcoming adversity. Set ... aside from the expectedly grim WW1 bits ... in a particularly easy-on-the-eye bit of English history. If you're a fan of Downton Abbey, or that elegiac twilight of British Empire, this film is for you.

The lush Arts and Crafts interiors, in fact, were almost a character in their own right. As well as I know that stylistic movement, and the tales of Middle Earth, I had never put two and two together.  Tolkien spent his childhood surrounded by a cultural zeitgeist that celebrated myth, legend and fairy tale. Of course that influenced his writing. If you know anything about the professor's life, the other influences ... the horrors of industrial Birmingham after a childhood in the countryside, the majesty of Wagner, the nightmare and loss of WWI ... won't be a surprise. But it's great to see them put together into a story both sad and joyous and, ultimately, inspiring.

Afterwards, it was a short walk through Winchester's picturesque Georgian and Victorian streets (Tolkien would have approved) to the Kyoto Kitchen.

This small (no more than 40 covers) restaurant in the repurposed ground floor of an Edwardian house in a row just off the high street was considered one of the best Japanese restaurants in the country by the late, great critic A.A. Gill. (I often quibbled with his film reviews, but almost never with his much-missed food writing.) It's also been awarded a plate in the Michelin-guide, one step below the star system. Kyoto Kitchen has, therefore, been on our "must do" list for years but, embarrassingly, we never managed to make it there. Now that we have, I suspect we'll be back soon.

The menu features a broad range of sushi, sashimi and tempura, plus main courses like grilled black cod, duck breast with raspberry teriyaki sauce and lamb chops with white miso. Thus you can assemble your meal as you wish: feast on raw fish, graze on a succession of small plates or assemble a more traditional European three courses. Since it was our first visit, we left ourselves in the kitchen's hands and went for the chef's menu. This featured a procession of nine exquisite plates, all shared between us, for the astonishing price of £34.95 per person. Here's another reason to love Winchester. I haven't seen a tasting menu in a Michelin-noted restaurant inside the M25 for any less than £70 in years. But even outside of London, we'd have been likely to spend as much at the functional, food-court style sushi place in our local mall. Kyoto Kitchen is a remarkable bargain.

We liked every dish, but thought some were particularly stellar. Tori Kara Agè combine the moreishness and comfort of chicken nuggets with gourmet spicing and light-touch frying. This is why panko bread crumbs exist. Their tempura is excellent, though don't dawdle. Every second it cools is a step away from perfection. In a world where sushi and sashimi have become commonplace lunch take-aways, this was a reminder of the vast differences you can find in fish. Itsu's boxes are excellent, but Kyoto Kitchen's sashimi was noticeably different: more delicate, yet at the same time more packed with flavour. We were less keen on the ume-shiso roll, where we thought the sea bass was overwhelmed by the shiso leaf and plum dust, but we appreciated the gourmet twist. Mochi ... glutinous rice parcels filled with azuki bean paste ... were far better than their description and opened my eyes to the fact that desserts may be my greatest leap into the unknown when we explore Japan later this year.

The restaurant decor says Japanese with a sparse elegance: light wooden floors, black ebony-style chairs, white tablecloths graced with an exquisite variety of pottery and kimonos and obi (wide belts) hanging on the walls. More essential to the properly Japanese experience is the staff. I've written before of the odd-but-typical experience of dining in London where the staff doesn't match the cuisine. Polish waitresses serving up Scandinavian, Australians presenting gourmet French, etc. While I don't have any problem with this, it certainly adds to the authenticity when the people taking care of you come from the same place as the recipes. Especially when your lead waitress takes the time to give you sightseeing tips from her home town and teach you some new Japanese words. We have now, usefully, mastered "oishī" with a big smile. That means "tasty". I suspect I'll be using it a lot when we reach Japan, and predict a few more practice sessions at Kyoto Kitchen in the mean time.

It is, after all, only 25 minutes away. And now, having scouted out exactly how far Kyoto Kitchen is from the train station ... just one stop past our own ... we can make the next trip by public transport, freeing us up for the matching 5-cup sake menu for an additional £20. Yes, that's right. A Michelin "plate" chef's menu, five courses with matching alcohol flight for less than £55. Londoners, eat your hearts out. Winchester is where it's at.