Kaiten Sushi Above Platform 1 Since 1994: Moshi Moshi

Moshi Moshi sits at Unit 24, Liverpool Street Station, London EC2M 7PY, up on the level above platform 1 and tucked behind M&S, and it has been serving kaiten sushi there since Caroline Bennett opened it in 1994. Belt plates start at £2.50, the dining room runs from 11:30 to 22:00 Tuesday to Friday, and at lunch every seat is first come, first served. For anyone searching conveyor belt sushi near me around the City, it is the original.

Bennett has said that restaurants in train stations are a mainstay of Japanese culture, and that she grew up travelling on trains, with a grandfather who worked on the railways too. Putting a sushi belt above a commuter platform was her way of bringing that idea to London. Network Rail, which marked the restaurant's 30th anniversary in 2024, calls it Britain's first conveyor belt sushi restaurant.

The early regulars found it without any marketing at all. Bennett recalls Japanese visitors working in the Liverpool Street financial district discovering the place, and says the restaurant did not spend a penny on advertising. The dining room itself was designed by Kaneshiro Yusaku, a Tokyo restaurant designer known for steering Japanese interiors back towards their cultural roots and the room's timber detailing reflects that.

Continuity in the kitchen has been unusual too. Chef Siu Hong Li, known as Chef Hong, joined in 1994 and retired in 2024 after three decades at the counter. Network Rail's anniversary piece notes that many of the team have also been there for decades. That long memory shows in how smoothly the belt is managed during a busy lunch service.

Moshi Moshi is as much a sustainability project as a sushi bar. It took bluefin tuna off its menu in 1998, the first restaurant in the UK to do so, and switched from mass-produced farmed salmon to Loch Duart salmon in 2000. It was among the first UK restaurants to achieve Marine Stewardship Council accreditation, and Slow Food named it Restaurant of the Year in 2024.

The white fish comes from a family-run Cornish business supplying catch from a collective of small boats fishing with static gear and lines, and that fish reaches the restaurant the day after it is landed. Chef Hong once described waking at 4am to go out on the boats himself. Scallops are dive-caught from Plymouth or Jersey, chicken is organic from Otter Farm in Devon, and lunch sets now come with wild Alaskan salmon.

The signature swap is the faux unagi. Worried about declining European eel, the kitchen replaced its unagi with kabayaki dogfish, an under-used Cornish species glazed the same way. It arrives on nigiri, in hand rolls with cucumber and in the temaki set, and it is the plate to try first if you have never been. Do not skip the prawn head crispies either, a nose-to-tail snack that wastes nothing.

Belt plates are priced by colour on the 2025 dine-in menu. Orange plates are £2.50, Blue £3.00, Cream £3.85, Red £4.40, Black Gold £5.20 and Silver Pink £6.05, with desserts at £4.50. Stack your plates as you go and the bill is simply the sum of the colours, so it is easy to keep a light lunch under £15 by leaning on the cheaper rolls and a bowl of miso.

If you would rather not graze, the set menus are good value. A sushi set of Loch Duart salmon nigiri, Cornish fish nigiri, salmon skin maki, kappamaki and salmon hosomaki costs £15.50, and a larger set adding yellowtail, seared Cornish fish, faux unagi, crab and avocado and prawn tempura rolls is £22.00. The temaki handroll set, three crisp seaweed cones, is £16.80.

Hot dishes round things out. Chicken katsu curry with organic chicken is £16.00, and the organic tofu and wakame miso soup is £2.80. Edamame are £3.85 if you want something to pick at while you wait for a particular plate to come round. An honest call: the hot mains are fine but not the reason to climb the stairs, so spend your money on the fish instead.

The official opening times on the restaurant's contact page are Tuesday to Friday, 11:30 to 22:00, with Monday listed as lunch only, from 11:30 to 15:00. Weekends are reserved for private hire, and the restaurant closes on bank holidays and between Christmas and New Year. This is a weekday place built around the rhythm of the City, so plan a Saturday sushi trip somewhere else.

During lunch the room seats diners strictly in arrival order, and reservations are accepted only before 12:15 and after 14:00, Monday to Friday. In practice that means arriving at 11:30 sharp, or just after 14:00 when the office crowd drains back to their desks. Groups of six or more should call or email to reserve at lunchtime rather than turning up and hoping for adjacent seats.

Members of the Moshi card scheme receive monthly offers by email, which can include their popular £3 plate offer and a birthday gift. If the belt looks thin late in the evening, order from the menu instead of waiting for a plate to appear.

The restaurant is inside Liverpool Street Station itself, on the upper level above platform 1 and behind M&S, so you do not need to leave the station to eat. Head for the platform 1 end of the concourse and look for the route up to the gallery level. It suits a meal before an evening train from the same platforms, or a quick lunch between meetings in Broadgate.

The station is served by the Central, Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines plus the Elizabeth line, so it is easy to reach from almost anywhere in London. If the lunchtime queue is long and you cannot wait, the takeaway menu covers boxed sushi sets and onigiri rice balls, which you can carry down to the concourse or out into nearby Broadgate.

Spitalfields Market and the old streets around Brushfield Street are a five-minute walk north-east, a good place to stroll after lunch among the market stalls and Georgian terraces. To the south-west, the Leadenhall Market arcade is worth the ten-minute detour for its painted Victorian roof, especially on a grey afternoon when you want somewhere covered to wander for a while before heading back to the station.

Address: Unit 24, Liverpool Street Station, London EC2M 7PY, above platform 1 behind M&S. Email: liverpoolstreet@moshimoshi.co.uk. The bar runs a two-for-one happy hour on selected drinks, Tuesday to Friday, 3pm to 6pm. All wines on the list are organic or biodynamic, and both white Japonica rice and brown genmai rice are offered with bento.

Use the Karpo APP to save Moshi Moshi with your other City lunch spots, so you can match a weekday train or meeting to the 11:30 opening and skip the peak. It is the rare London restaurant where the story behind the fish is as interesting as the plate, and an unhurried visit after 14:00 lets you enjoy both properly.