WHEN it comes to cultural culinary collisions, there are few as unlikely as Danish and Japanese.

On the surface the home of the Vikings, with its love of butter, bacon and herring has little in common with the Land of the Rising Sun. But Sticks’n’Sushi proves that a Scandinavian-Asian marriage of flavours is a match made in heaven.

Occupying a prime position on the roof of the Westgate, Sticks’n’Sushi is just the second branch of the restaurant outside London, Cambridge just pipping us to the post. But, I’ll wager none of its other branches have a view like ours – with a vista stretching from Lincoln Library and the University Church right round to Christ Church Cathedral. Jaw-dropping – as the cheery staff – all dressed in T-shirts bearing witty Danish translations – were quick to point out. Like elsewhere in the Westgate, there is a palpable sense of excitement – as well there might be, considering the scale of the project and the time it has taken to get right.

Inside, the decor is sleek but convivial – the Danes and the Japanese do minimalism well. Seating is on expensive looking chairs at long tables beneath shiny pendent lampshades. There are lots of drapes – surprising given the view.

The restaurant started as an experiment 24 years ago in Copenhagen, when Japanese-Danish brothers Jens and Kim Rahbek, and their brother-in-law Thor Andersen, decided to celebrate their heritage.

It is fundamentally Japanese, though, majoring on sushi and grilled yakitori with Nordic touches.

Entering into the spirit, we went for a cold Japanese beer – Kirin Ichiba (£6.50), which is fairly strong at 5% but very crisp, and a sensible ginger and lemongrass fizz (£2.50) – a lightly sparkling drink of muddled ginger and a stick of lemongrass. For a soft drink it packed a bit of a punch.

Food is served to share, so to start our chopsticks did battle over seaweed salad (£6) – a super-fresh bowl of seaweed and delicate kelp noodles, which are not as oceanic tasting as they sound, and enlivened with tomato, crisp radish, firm asparagus, a yuzu vinaigrette and sesame, and a second bowl of tuna tartare (£9.80) – the fish being so fresh it practically quivered, and matched with smooth avocado, rich ginger, savoury miso and more sesame – and accompanied by a huge rice chip – which can only be described as a thinner, more refined version of a prawn cracker as big as a side plate and onto which we shovelled the juicy cubes of fish.

We also clashed chopsticks over beef tataki (£9.80) – six wafer-thin slices of meat so unbelievably tender the beast it came from must have been massaged on a daily basis while listening to live bossa nova and sipping cocktails.

Then it was time to dive into the sushi – first sashimi (fish without rice) in the shape of salmon Shake (five pieces for £7.80) and a variety of Maki (sliced rolls of rice wrapped in seaweed (starting at a very reasonable £2.80 for eight pieces).

The winners were the California – a pleasing combination of shrimp, miso aioli, avocado and cucumber; and crunchy chicken – the poultry teamed with almonds, smoked cheese and chilli, and the New York subway – tempura shrimp with avocado, wrapped in salmon. They were each mini taste explosions. Masterpieces in flavour engineering.

After that, it was just time to try the sticks: yakitori (from £2.20 each). These bore more of a Danish twang, with such deliciously moreish combinations as Emmental cheese and asparagus wrapped in bacon (party time!) – but also pure Japanese such as wagyu yaki –just grilled beef with salt, pepper and lemon.

It was sublime and I’ll be back.

As the Danes would say: ‘lækker’ – Yum!