Maki rolls into Shoreditch bringing greater quality and choice of sushi to the high street

Maki, the high street sushi chain, which is rolling the industry over with its handmade sushi and array of choices, announced the launch of its second store in the heart of Shoreditch following the success of its first store on Brushfield Street, London.

Maki, a challenger brand to incumbent high street names Itsu and Wasabi, was founded by two Scottish brothers, Daniel and Antony Woodcock. The brand launched in February of last year as part of the ever-popular street food scene, quickly expanding into its first permanent location in September 2015.

The brothers’ vision is to bring restaurant-quality sushi to the high street. Maki is the only sushi chain to have trained sushi chefs in every store hand-rolling all sushi. Hand rolling enables the Maki chefs to pack the sushi with more ingredients than your average roll meaning consumers get bigger flavours, more variety and higher quality sushi.

All flavours are created by Maki’s head chef, Renard Ibasco, who has previously worked at The Roka restaurant group. The combinations have been created and tailored to suit the UK market but have been inspired by the progressive high-street sushi shops of Australia and the US.

“Sushi chefs are hard to come by but we ensure we only hire the best,” says Daniel Woodcock, managing director at Maki. “Unlike our competitors on the high street we have professional sushi chefs hand rolling our sushi fresh every morning. By doing this we ensure our customers have access to the best taste, quality and choice on the market.”

“Our flavours are a mixture of traditional and experimental; from classic spicy tuna to soy roasted beef there is something for everyone,” says Antony Woodcock co-founder at Maki.

Antony and Daniel Woodcock, who both had a number of years’ experience in hospitality including stints as chefs, are avid sushi lovers and were frustrated by the lack of choice provided by chains on the high street at the time. As such, they combined their experience in hospitality and passion for sushi to launch Maki.

“Antony and myself are real foodies. We were taught to cook by our parents when we were little and still like to cook when we get home from work today,” continues Daniel. “Creating something in the food and beverage space was always an ambition of ours, so being in a position to open a second in a bustling place like Shoreditch is a good feeling.”

Maki provides prices by the piece and is competitive with the traditional players with a large eight-piece box costing £7.96.

This second store is part of a growth plan to launch more stores in London in the next three to five years with the brothers emphasising that keeping the quality of the sushi when scaling the business is their number one priority.