Nagisa — Restaurant in Newcastle-Maitland

Lots of people have recommended Nagisa so I went here for dinner and opted for the teppanyaki bar. Starts with a choice of sides:

Hokkaido Scallops, spicy yuzu butter, radish and pear puree, yuzu wasabi cream, pickled cucumber, honeydew melon and shops micro herb, served with matching sake

Plump, juicy, succulent and oozing flavour. These perfectly cooked scallops were effectively paired with lovely flavours to compliment but not overpower the delicious scallops.

I chose set 3: combination (of seafood and beef). After the side and a salad, seafood was prepared - sashimi grade salmon and kingfish, prawn, cuttlefish, scallops. I loved the teriyaki kingfish, the salmon was perfectly cooked and the rest of the seafood was delicious with a squeeze of lemon or dipping in the soy sauce or miso mustard sauce.

A delicious red miso soup was also presented and you also get the choice of rice, I went with garlic rice and it was delicious and full of rich buttery and garlic flavours.

Next was the 150g grain fed scotch fillet - marble score 9. Wow, just cut like butter and melted in your mouth. Lovely tender flavour of the meat enjoyed with beansprout, onion and carrot mix grilled with garlic, butter and soy. Also liked the grilled pumpkin, zucchini and sweet potato.

So stuffed, a refreshing yuzu citrus sorbet was served which was the perfect end to a lovely dining experience. The atmosphere of the restaurant is excellent and so too the service.

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I have attempted to reach out to this restaurant multiple times and have received no response. We dined at Nagisa on the 31st at lunch and spent $374. The experience was so poor that day we watched two tables leave after being seated even though there was staff walking around but deliberately not walking past tables with people so they would not have to serve them. We were seated for about 20 minutes till I had to stand up and ask of a waiter could please take our drinks order. Trying to catch a waiter to order drinks and food was like trying to catch a fly with chop sticks, so I would have to get up and chase a waiter down. During our 2 hour lunch we watched 2 more tables leave as they didn’t receive service. For the amount of money we spent we could have gone to a much better fine dining restaurant but we were told this was the best Japanese restaurant in Newcastle. Unfortunately the service was well below average which impacted our experience and made the food pretty average as well. Not a great experience and will never go back!

When I paid the bill I asked the manager are you short staffed today? They replied no. So this experience wasn’t because of staff shortages it was simply because the staff at the restaurant didn’t want to be there working. If I was the owner of this venue I would look into this matter urgently.

We have also shared this experience with other friends who have thought about dining at this restaurant and decided against spending there money and evening at this venue.

Save yourself a trip of dissatisfaction and disappointment go...

This restaurant is not Japanese at all, the menu was Italian for the most part, generally European menu items. And it didn't even taste that good, unfortunately... Don't waste your money in this place!

This was the worse value for money we've even seen! It was $165 per person and we were still hungry at the end. We booked through the calendar booking system and there was no step in the booking process that stated there was going to be such an exorbitant charge for the dinner. Plus, it was a set menu and nothing in the calendar booking process stated that it was going to be a set menu for that day. We did not use the special set menu booking page to book, we used the normal calendar booking system. We were scammed.

We booked for a special occasion expecting great food and great atmosphere. We had neither. We are very disappointed. They had a set menu and said they don't do gluten free or dairy free, or red meat free. We chose Japanese as it is an easy cuisine for gluten-free / dairy-free people. Italian is the worse for that, and that was their set menu that night.

They ended up making some changes upon our instance, otherwise they were charging us $140 in cancellation fee!!! There were only 15 tables occupied. It should be simple to accommodate very common dietary requirements in this context, or at least offer some sensible choice. We were treated like second rate citizens.

Not a place we recommend or would ever come back to. Overpriced, underdelivered, and poor,...