It’s a Tuesday lunchtime in Oxford and Cornmarket Street is buzzing. Tourists snap photos, students drift out of libraries, and the air carries that muggy, stuck feeling of a British summer trying a little too hard. But inside a high street sushi shop, there’s a different energy — the hum of air conditioning, mint-green bento trays, and the delicate citrus pop of yuzu drifting from an iced bottle.
Wasabi has launched its summer menu and while it might sound like just another seasonal refresh, it feels more like a cultural soft launch. With cold soba salads, miso salmon poke bowls, and pastel mochi lined up like sorbet-tinted props, this is fast food designed to slow you down.
And that, it turns out, is the point.
In Japan, seasonal eating isn’t a trend, it’s a rhythm. A way of living that aligns food with environment, temperature, even mood. Now, Wasabi seems to be bringing a little of that cadence to the UK’s high streets and quietly offering ritual in the place we least expect it.
In a landscape where global food options are growing but still orbit predictable chains, this approach stands out.
It doesn’t shout for attention, it invites you to reset. Pick up a chilled poke tray, sip something citrusy, and wander past the Bodleian with a lunch that feels almost… meditative.
And it’s not just a menu… it’s a mood.
Food aesthetics are everywhere: TikTok edits of sushi lunches, iced matcha with gold straws, hand-rolled onigiri tucked into handbags like accessories.
Wasabi’s summer range fits the bill with portable, pastel, and plant-forward. But more importantly, it taps into a generational shift in eating: calm over chaos, care over convenience.
This year, that shift comes wrapped in gold foil.
The centrepiece of the new summer lineup is a curated tasting box inspired by the Japanese tradition of Omakase which literally translates to, “I’ll leave it up to you.”
In this case, that means a seven-part flavour sequence that doesn’t ask what you feel like. It tells you. Start with a crisp edamame salad. Move through a tuna dragon roll, citrus ponzu, a spicy inari pocket. Each element follows a logic, a cooling arc designed to calm both heat and indecision.
It’s an unexpected move from a chain known for sushi-on-the-go. But maybe that’s the point.
“We developed the summer menu around a couple of key themes, bold flavours and experiential dining,” says Florence Gardner-Hillman, Wasabi’s food product developer.
“Omakase was the perfect answer. It gives people a way to try something new, without having to choose.”
In an era of overstimulation and lunchbreak scroll fatigue, it lands. When your midday meal literally hands you an order of operations, one bite at a time, it reads as oddly comforting. And oddly current.
But what customers will likely notice first isn’t the order — it’s the vibe.
The presentation feels almost editorial. Jewel-toned donburi bowls. Yuzu mayo piped like brushstrokes. Salmon pearls catching the light like resin beads. The menu doesn’t just taste curated, it looks it. And that, in 2025, is part of the appeal. Lunch, lately, is visual culture.
Still, this isn’t empty styling. If anything, this summer drop is a reminder that fast food can still carry meaning, especially when it borrows from traditions where dining is performance. This is convenience culture dressed as quiet ceremony. Ritual, served cold.
Oxford, with its crosscurrents of students, tourists, office workers, and creative drifters, might be the perfect test ground
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