The menu runs from an onion soup in smoked bonito consommé with aged Comté, through mullet sashimi served on the bone and head with a cold Bilbao sauce, mussels sunomono with smoked beef tongue and seaweed, and a lamb kebab temaki with charred sweetbreads. The carta shifts with the season, the sea, and, as the kitchen puts it, the mood of its suppliers.

Hugo Muñoz learned traditional cooking under Abraham García at Viridiana and worked at Casa Nicolasa in San Sebastián and at Miramar with Paco Pérez. Japanese cooking took over at Kabuki Wellington, where he learned from Ricardo Sanz, followed by Umo and Zuma in London. He then cooked his own mix of the two traditions at Shikku Izakaya and as chef de cuisine of KaButoKaji (KBK) in Aravaca, which earned him the Revelation Chef prize at the first Madrid Gastronomy Awards of the Academia Madrileña de Gastronomía, in 2016.

Ugo Chan is the first restaurant under his own name. It opened in 2021, holds two Repsol Soles, and won its Michelin star at the November 2022 gala in Toledo. OAD ranked Ugo Chan 167th in its Europe Top Restaurants list for 2025 and 159th in 2026.

The dining room is contemporary, with the kitchen on view and two bars, one of them the sushi counter where the nigiri are made in front of you. The restaurant keeps its capacity deliberately small and its tables well spaced, under plenty of natural light. Behind the constantly changing menu sits a line Muñoz borrows from Heraclitus: no one steps in the same river twice.

Ugo Chan describes its cooking as a look at Japanese cuisine and its ties with the rest of the world, with product and season as the thread. You can order from the carta or hand over to the kitchen with the omakase, which is built on the spot around each table's tastes, dislikes and appetite. The carta changes with the season, the sea and, as the restaurant puts it, the mood of its suppliers.

The current carta mixes Japanese form with Madrid and Basque references: Oléron oyster with ponzu and chilli, ikizukuri of the day's fish with a cold Guetaria-style bilbaína, a tribute to Robuchon of toro tartare with smoked-eel gelée and Iranian caviar, and gyozas of Madrid-style callos with fried chickpeas (€28 for four). Nigiri come in pairs at €15.50 to €16.50, including foie gras and eel in homage to Martín Berasategui, and temaki run to a lamb-sweetbread kebab. Lobster in three servings, at €195 per kilo, needs 24 hours' notice. Prices include 10% VAT.

The rest of the carta keeps up the dialogue. From the cold side there's red tuna tartare with a fried free-range egg; from the warm side, 'lenteja caviar', a spoon dish of beluga-style lentils with wood pigeon in Japanese curry, coconut air and escabeche. The nigiri run from white fish with Iberian pork fat and yuzu kosho, toro and seared toro to a fried tartare with basil, ginger and Parmesan, kokotxa in tempura with pil pil, quail egg with 'Japanese shepherd' migas, and gaucho-style ribeye with marrow. The closing dishes are hake steamed after a koji marinade and served 'rebozada' with a foam made from its head, and a deconstructed Wellington of roe-deer tataki with shiitake duxelles. The lobster comes in three servings: sashimi steamed in sake, tartare, and a 'Tokyo-Empordà' suquet.

The menu has also nodded to Madrid's bar classics with a Japanese take on soldaditos de Pavía, the fried salt-cod strips of old Madrid taverns.

The cellar is built on small producers, and Ugo Chan keeps separate lists for wine, sake and sparkling wine, which change as bottles sell. If you want a specific bottle held for your visit, the restaurant takes requests by email through its wine page.

Ugo Chan Bar runs straight through the afternoon and evening until 01:30, a cocktail bar where whisky, rum, armagnac and sake share the shelves with the house's books.

The restaurant serves lunch from 13:30 to 16:00 and dinner from 20:30 to midnight, Tuesday to Saturday, and is closed on Sunday and Monday. Book through the reservation page on ugochan.com, which asks you to accept a cancellation policy and may hold a card guarantee. Keep the headcount the same as the booking, or call ahead if it changes. The dining room is small, so there is no space for pushchairs, and there are no high chairs or children's menu.