Zenzakan — Restaurant in Frankfurt

Before I get into the details - the location itslef is very nice.

And it is unusual for me to give 1-star ratings - but this time I was really disappointed - main reason is that there is a MASSIVE gap between expectation towards a MOOK Group restaurant and the reality hit in this restaurant.

Let me explain why:

I have been to many expensive places and also all other MOOK restaurants in Frankfurt - Franziskas, Ivory Club, M-Steackhouse, Mon Ami Maxi. All these restaurants are not cheap and the service and quality more or less match the price level and it was always a satisfactory visit.

However, for Zenzakan this does not apply - it is miles away from the quality and service level of the other MOOK restaurants - it feels like a highly overpriced system-gastronomy place with anonymous service and an "its good enough for the guest" attitude:

During ordering:

Several dishes were not available anymore when we wanted to order (e.g. peking duck) and they told us we shoudl have reserved it but there was nowhere an info about duck-shortage in the reservation process Custom wishes during the order (e.g. please leave xy out) were NOT possible and they refused to accept them serice personell had no clue about ingredients in the meals

During the meal:

Service personell had mutiple times serious issues with delivering the right plates to the right table: We got wrong plates and half hour later our next course was braught to someones elses table...

the aperitiv of the day was really undrinkable - it reminded me of one of these multivitamin tablest to dissolve in water from the supermarket

Service personell said "Du" to us, which in germany is lack of respect or just due to badly trained service personell if this happens in a €€€€ (4x) restaurant

The service personells attention was very low - we where sitting with empty glasses more than once for 15-20 Minutes + they parked our wine 5-6 meters away + they asked us if we want to have some desert 45 minutes AFTER we finsihed the main courses. After everyone finished the empty plates were standing on the table for more than half an hour.

The food itself:

Beef Soup with wan tan was more of warmed soja sauce with 2 instead of 4 announced wan tans spinach was very ordinary Ceviche was really NOT a ceviche which is a latin dish I know really well In good restaurants rice can be a highlight - in this case it was not - the egg rice was definately below the quality of any ordinary Thai-Restaurant around the corner... Their own rosé "Mon Ami Maxi" is definately not a 50 EUR wine. I have no problem paying 50 EUR for a bottle of wine, but this one is really not worth it... Hummer was dry Schrimps main course was also way to dry and uneatable A highlight though was the Wagyu, 100gr as part of an 200 EUR meat plate Steak was also OK

In the end we left 800 EUR in this restaurant with 4 and wished we would have gone to another place for half of the price.

And this is my main point for the raiting - have no issues paying for good food and experiences but hate the feeling of getting...

Where do I start?!

A little confusing at first as the building houses 2 different types of restaurants. Entrance to Zenzakan is inside the White Ivory restaurant (very German cuisine) via very huge mahogany ancient doors up a few flights of stairs in the middle of the White Ivory restaurant. There are other rooms when you make it through Nania (the lion, the witch and the wardrobe style of entrance into another world). Unsure if these rooms where part of the White Ivory or Zenzakan. Anyhow there's a very wide and large red oak/mahogany wooden stars leading downstairs to Zenzakan. You should have burnt enough calories by now.

Are you hungry? Good. There's a treat awaiting your eyes as you walk into this exquisitely decorated restaurant. The ambience is like something out of a glossy high end magazine. The staff are very welcoming and they speak perfect English too (for non fluent/non German speakers). Menus are in both English and German.

The dishes are served in a very timely manner and what a sight to be behold as they were placed on our table. The food tasted just as delicious as they looked. Chef's kiss!

Overall, beautiful ambience and delicious foods and excellent service, but for the price tag I wouldn't expect anything less. Somewhere to go to on special occasions or just to treat yourself (because you deserve it) and experience fine dinning. Dinner (starter, mains and dessert) for myself and my friend with a glass of wine each and a bottle of water came to just under €200 (including tip). No complaints. It was worth it and I would go back again.

Con: the lighting was a little too dark for my friend to really appreciate what was on her plate, but her taste buds were delighted at the taste.

Highly recommended if you have the...

We rarely go to expensive places but this one has a great reputation, and we had something very special to raise a glass to. So cocktails and dinner was the idea.

The friendliness of staff and ambience was fine. Even the food was decent (though if not a bit overrated)

They really messed up with basic restaurant service etiquette though. Our food arrived within 5-10 minutes of ordering, which would ordinarily be OK, except for the fact that our drinks hadn’t arrived yet. One of the most basic faux-pas in the restaurant business. Drinks first, then food.

So we decided to just wait a bit longer for the drinks, as the food was mostly sushi anyway and could sit.

We waited for 50 minutes, asking twice throughout the wait, only to be apologized to twice and that our drinks had been made but sent to the wrong table…. Twice?

All other things considered, this restaurant could have easily been higher rated. But they really should put more effort into ensuring proper order of operations and actual running of drinks and food.

Apparently drinks being sent to the wrong table is commonplace here and I am not the only one. MOOK group needs to realize that this can, especially for patrons who are going out specifically to celebrate something and raise a toast, ruin the evening.

We basically weren’t there for the food but more so the drinks and waited an hour to get them.

Props to the waiter for his kindness in taking the drinks off the bill in the end. But management needs to figure out a system to ensure that the house, front and back, work together more cohesively.

I haven’t worked in my share of high-end restaurants. I know the pressure and the difficulty. But it is doable, especially if asking...