Fresh ingredients, capably prepared: simply a good meal. This intimate little restaurant is both fun and great value. There’s no sushi, just a selection of authentic appetisers, buns and grazing plates. With Japanese beers, sake and cocktails, you will leave with a smile.

Marinated and seared sliced beef comes on a sprightly salad of ginger, shiso and daikon for extra crunch. It’s a bowl of vigour and class. It’s a slick and confident operation, run by a team which knows what it’s doing.

Jay Rayner in The Observer

The food arrives in waves: Koj fried chicken with sesame mayo and miso roast cod. The buns include soft-shell crab tempura and an ox heart burger. Desserts include yuzu posset. Friendly, knowledgeable service adds to the relaxed feel in the informal space.

Leeks are charred, but possess an inherent sweetness, accentuated by a rich miso dip. Genuinely interesting, intelligent Japanese food, far removed from the usual dreary clichés. A gleamingly bright shard of Japan, in this most English of Cotswold towns.

Tom Parker Bowles in The Mail on Sunday

The ‘go to’ restaurant for Cheltenham and the Cotswolds, offering an eclectic range of Japanese dishes that are tasty and satisfying with their unique selling point of no sushi. Judges were wowed by Koj fried chicken and the amazing reviews in the national press.

Cotswold Life Food & Drink Awards

If you want something different, Koj is a small, informal dining room with Japanese grazing dishes. The okonomiyaki, a sort of Japanese bubble and squeak, is very good. I also recommend the beef tongue bun with wasabi mayonnaise and pickled shiitake.

David Everitt Matthias in The Telegraph