Nakano Darling — Restaurant in Sydney

Poor service. Restaurant only applies their 90 minute rule to certain customers. If you're white the restaurant rules won't apply to you and you'll be able to dine for as long as you want. If you're any other race then they will kick you out whether or not you've finished your food.

My partner and I dined here last night. We ordered 2 beer towers and ordered 6 dishes spending $165 between 2 people in total. At 9:20, we were trying to finish everything we ordered when a staff told us that there is a booking for our table at 9:30 and we will get kicked out whether we've finished our food or not. There were about 4 or 5 free tables at this point and we were confused why we're getting kicked out. We pointed out there was a white couple sitting opposite us who were dining before us and another white couple who was also dining before us and was allowed to move from the bar into the private booth. We respect restaurant policy but seems like your restaurant policy only apply to us (is it because we're Asian) and not the white customers who clearly were dining in your restaurant before us and were sitting past the 90 minute rule. If you had asked the white customers who were there before us to leave first then we wouldn't have a problem. But it seems like your restaurant can't afford to upset the white customers so your staff were too afraid to ask the white customers to leave. I would like to know whether your staff would dare to say to the white customers "you will get kicked out even if you don't finish your food" like what they said to us.

When we asked your manager why doesn't your restaurant policy apply to white customers and why didn't your staff ask the white customers to leave, your manager replied "no we try to be fair to all customers. We hate white people. We will always try to help Asian customers. It's because these customers had a booking and paid double or triple the price." First off, it was very unprofessional and racist for your manager to have said that he hates white people. Secondly I checked your website for booking conditions and there is no condition to pay double or triple the price or to pay anything for a booking. On your website it says bookings of less than 4 people are subjected to a 90 minute sitting. So even if that white couple had made a booking they should have been subjected to the 90 minute rule too and asked to leave before us. The only monetary booking requirement on your website is that private booth bookings require customers to spend a minimum of $50 per customer. You can see from our bill that we spent more than the minimum spend even when we were not in the private booth but was subjected to unfair servicing with staff trying to kick us out just because we're Asian and not white. Even if you guys had a line waiting outside, you should kick out the white customers who were there before us out first.

You guys may be arrogant because your restaurant is busy and it won't hurt you if you lose one customer but I will never spend my money at your restaurant again. Being racially profiled for being Asian in an Asian restaurant is just...

We have been to Nakano several times in the past and have recommended it to my friends for a fun izakaya to have food and drinks. However, tonight we were very disappointed. We went as a group of four at 9:30 after a gym session, which we had booked. We ordered dinner, basically, several serves of karage, octopus karage, gyoza, udon and maybe something else. We had two drinks each. After maybe an hour and a half , two hours, a server came and said that she was taking the last order for the table. Two people ordered one more drink and she said, 'Can't you order a snack?' 'We are a restaurant and you can't just drink.' The assumption was that we were drunk. It really was quite offensive since we had already spent quite a lot of money on food, had plates still on our table and were certainly not inebriated or acting out of the normal. We were just chatting with our friends who we had not seen in a while. She really was very rude and after I had pointed out that we had indeed eaten, she looked more carefully at our docket and said, 'Oh, I see you ordered food. My bad.' and walked away. It was not a great night considering we spent about $300 there to be treated rudely. I absolutely would not go there again and the food was not that great, to be honest. I think having been written up in Sydney Morning Herald or several other places perhaps has made them a bit arrogant. We spoke to the manager or someone who seemed to be in charge but he just said what do you expect me to do. He said the servers have to follow RSA regulations but we already had food and had not had many drinks. She asked us what we would like and then seemed like she didn't want to serve us. It really made no sense. We were just talking to our friends. The people next to us had a Beer Tower! If there is a two drink limit, then they should post that!!! No compensation, no apology. Very disappointing. I would not go there again or recommend it to any of my friends. Why would you pay to be treated rudely like this? (Follow on in response to owner) The owner's response below is also dissapointing in that he said she just did what we trained her to do. . . that sounds like he thinks the staff's approach and manner was justifiable, which in the circumstances it absolutely was not. My wife wrote the original post as she was quite upset to be treated in such a way on a quiet night out with close friends and although I dislike giving bad reviews in this case I 100%...

Food: Good Very well seasoned Karaage. Looked slightly burnt but couldn't taste it. Was juicy. Could of done with extra mayonnaise and extra lemon wedges as we ordered 2 portions.

Portion is what you would expect in a bar first, food on second. It's more expensive and smaller portions of food than if you went to a Japanese restaurant and got a bento for the same price. It is to be expected, didn't mind it.

Drinks: Great Amazing selection of fruit wine (plum wine), beer cans that I only seen in Japan and beers made liked how the Japanese do it in the chilled glass with the right foam. Great job.

Service: Good door host, Terrible waiters The guy in front was very nice and accommodating, there wasn't enough room for the group of 5 so he took down our name and number. Recognised us when we came back.

Staff inside was terrible. All the food came out (double portion Karaage, double gyoza and edamame) faster than drinks (canned oolong, plum wine and 3 beers. I think they need an extra bartender.

The worst thing is, when we wanted stuff such as extra drinks, it was so hard to get the staff to notice us or we couldn't find one. It didn't feel like any of the waiter had one designated spot to look after. Rather they all seemed to be everywhere. I've seen two different couples at two different times walk in and sat down waiting to get served. Then walked out... And one couple even said out loud, "we're going because your service is terrible, no one came to us".

If there is a group sharing food, please give us tiny plates to eat off...

Just a little more care and attention for the customer would make this a great place to go to. I hope they improve it.

Interior: Nice Love the anime projection and the seatings. Cool toilets, check them out! The signs in the toilets are a little confusing. They have seating outside too. Wish the gachapon was not all empty.

Branding: On point Distinctive colour palette, great visual identity is of the yellow beer glass container and awesome interior. Good Instagram stories, could use more of that in the feed.

Overall: Good Might come back at a later stage when it's more established. They have a great chef, bartender and front door...