Yuzuki Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Toronto

Beautiful restaurant, it's not large, feels cozy and gets cozier as the night approaches. The size of the place makes you feel pretty special just for being there and the atmosphere carries an airy sensation of fanciness. There is some ornamental Samurai gear by the entrance, some murals of scenes out of a Japanese tapestry on some of the walls, and the presence of wood furnishings and accents throughout the decor help amplify the feel and the vibe of the place as the servers, clad in kimonos, lead you to your seat

The ceiling is painted black so your focus is held on what's important, the low key and tasteful anima of the room immediately before and then around you. It's a relatively quiet place, the seating and lighting make it seem very intimate and a little rich. You can see the cooks working at the back of the restaurant (always cool to see!) and once you sit down in the slightly low and soft chairs you start to feel a little fancier yourself.

I got an eel dish on rice as the main course (unnagi-don), an octopus salad, spicy salmon sushi roll, and the cheapest -by far!- sake available, served warm. The food was phenomenal. All of it was the best thing I've had in ages, not just for the style of cuisine, but it was all just a high-grade of restauranting without having to pay with John Wick tokens or corporate shares, but keep in mind, that the cost of dining here is noticably more than a more pedestrian far East experience, even other dine-in restaurants that are operating at a high level of competency. Yuzuki is certainly next-level dining at a high-level price. Some of the menu options are indeed next-level, and my friend and I did not swing in hard with our wallets, but you clearly will get what you pay for!

Or server, Kaori, was incredibly considerate and helpful to us with our seating, ordering and making sure we were overall very comfortable, which she - and the other server, I don't know her name - did expertly and without bothering us (not an easy feat!) Their presence was perfectly matching the atmosphere and not despite it, so they left us feeling similarly sophisticated and ultimately kind of special, a subtle running theme of this particular place.

Aside from the fact that I live an inconvenient distance from Yuzuki (I'm barely in the city) this is now basically my favorite restaurant. I'm presently trying to come up with excuses to go back with someone in tow just to share this place for what it appears to be, a warm and special little secret where you are made to feel warm and...

I'll keep this review objective--but brutally honest. Pros: The ambiance is admittedly excellent: a clever mix of western bar and Japanese izakaya. The sushi counter, manned by actual Japanese chefs, delivers fresh ingredients with obvious skill and respect for the craft. And of course, the location--Bloor and Yonge-couldn't be more convenient. Cons: And now the ugly truth: If you're dining solo, prepare to be invisible. My food took an eternity to arrive. Yes, even something as basic as a grilled mackerel. At some point, I wondered if they were waiting for the fish to swim back from Japan. The open-kitchen chefs clearly know their art. The back-kitchen? Not so much. My mackerel came with the bile sac broken--rookie mistake 101--so one side tasted like a spoonful of bitter medicine. Anyone who has ever grilled mackerel knows how amateur that is. The waitress serving me deserves a special mention--for sheer arrogance. After making me wait an age, she dismissed my complaint with a straight face, claiming this was "normal." Translation: either she doesn't know her job, or she thinks the customer is an idiot. When I pressed, she refused an exchange, refused even a token refund, and finally walked off pretending I didn't exist. For context: I was a single diner spending over $100. If Hermes down the street treated customers this way, they'd go bankrupt in a week. You are more condescending than the SA in the Hermes fair lady! Verdict: This place could be worth it--if only the back kitchen and floor staff cared half as much as the sushi chefs. Maybe it was a bad night, maybe it was bias against solo diners. Either way, it turned what should have been a good meal into a lesson in patience and bitterness.

TLDR: What a pity！...

I've never not left a tip in my life but Yuzuki changed that. The food is great - the fish is high quality and that's what the 1 star is for. The straw that broke the camel back was the chubby server who rolled her eyes at us when we asked for split bill.

For a nice Japanese place that charges $45 for a ricebowl (chirashi don) this is unacceptable service

I reserved a table for 4 but 5 came, so I asked for an extra chair and table set up. I asked before the 5th person came and we got what we asked for when the appetizers came out The server was not familiar with the wine menu which had 5/6 items on it. Our white wine wasn't properly chilled. Main courses took about 40 minutes to come out, one after another We had to ask for water a couple times and it arrived for 5 of us after appetizers The servers dont remember who ordered what so they have to ask us where to put the dishes each time We asked to split the bill and the chubby server rolled her eyes at us and told us to do the math Her and the other server still couldn't do it and finally we asked for the bill to be split by 5. They gave us bills split into 4 instead. When I told the chubby server it was rude of her to roll her eyes, she scoffed at us There was no manager so no one comped anything off our bill, and no one formally apologized for this server's behaviour until the very end when one of the other servers tried to...