Henshin — Restaurant in Jakarta

My husband and I are traveling through Indonesia for our honeymoon, so we've booked a few upscale restaurants to celebrate. Our reservation at Henshin was made in advance for a table beside the windows so we could take advantage of the 68th floor view.

The Good: Upon arrival at the Henshin we were promptly greeted by a hostess and escorted into an elevator that only goes up to the Henshin floors. The entry experience felt very VIP. You are permitted to walk around the 69th (rooftop bar) floor even if you have a dinner reservation (68th floor) and the staff will help you take photos. Decor and ambience was dark and modern. Supervisor chatted with us about our concerns with the temperature of the restaurant and gave us complimentary sorbet. All the dishes and drinks were beautifully presented and plated. Two servers asked at the beginning of our meal if we had any allergies.

The Bad: Outdoor temperature was 30C and the restaurant felt like 25C+. It seemed to get hotter as our meal progressed and eventually we got too uncomfortable to finish our food. Service was hit or miss. When we entered the building we were greeted by 7 different people; all the servers throughout our meal were friendly and very polite. Dishes were cleared from our table very promptly. However, when we asked for the drink list to order another drink and when we asked for a second bottle of water, neither came until we asked someone else again. Despite our reservation noting our special occasions, not once during our entire experience did anyone make mention of our honeymoon or my birthday. This is certainly not a requirement for dining, but why ask for details during the reservation process if you're not going to acknowledge it? Considering the price point of this restaurant, I expect them to be better with this. There was a live DJ on the 69th floor which we could hear from the 68th floor, but they may as well have been playing a Spotify playlist as the tunes were uninspired and did not add to the ambience.

The Food: Enjoyed the Henshin Salad (like an elevated take on a goma-ae) and the grilled octopus. Henshin roll was oddly warm for a sushi roll. Too much unagi sauce which overpowered all the other flavours. Tempura was pretty good. Served with a chili citrus dipping sauce which was unique. Our mains (Lomo saltado, Arroz con pato) arrived within a minute of us finishing our appetizers. It felt like they had already made the food and it may have been waiting under a heat lamp. Duck was overcooked and dry but had crispy skin, coriander rice was mushy but not quite a risotto. Beef was flavorful, onsen egg was cooked well.

The Drinks: We tried the Devil's Potion, Hanami, Black Sand IPA. All were pretty good. The Devil's Potion comes under a dome with smoke and the server waited until we were back at our seats before opening it for us.

In summary: This place feels a bit gimmicky, best suited for those who are looking for a place where they can have a meal that is entirely Instagrammable for clout. This is my first time leaving a restaurant early because the temperature was making me uncomfortable. At this price point it's kind of unacceptable. Weirdly, the bathrooms closer to the center of the tower were cooler, so it's not like they don't have AC. I don't expect to return in the near future, but if I did, it would be for drinks on the rooftop bar and I would go for dinner elsewhere. The servers do try their best which was appreciated. Henshin is apparently on a top 80 list of places to dine in Asia and it has 4.5+ stars on Google. I don't think this was a worthy contender for Top 80 in Asia and I don't think my experience...

I want to preface my review, by stating that the team who run the WhatsApp, were absolutely fantastic and I had no issue with them, they were fast to respond and deal with any requests.

I had a table booked for my wife's birthday for originally 6 people at 7pm on 11/05/25 which was confirmed by both the restaurant on WhatsApp and via an email link, I then changed to 7 people which again was confirmed by both the WhatsApp and then via email.

Upon arrival, we were told they have double booked our table, granted it does happen however, we then had to wait 10 minutes in the lobby while they ran around looking for a table, then on the 68th floor for another 5 minutes, until eventually they placed us in a room on the 69th floor away from everyone.

When we were eventually seated, we didn't get our drinks order taken, but had our food order taken first, and then had to wait circa 20 minutes for the waiter to come back around to order any drinks, which were in fact incorrect and frankly disgusting, as two times an Espresso Martini was ordered, to which we received a chocolate martini, when we mentioned it wasn't correct, we received another chocolate espresso..

The food was adequate, it's nothing I would be advising others to go and try, the chef seemingly has never cooked a steak as it was still Moo'ing at us from the plate despite supposedly being Medium and Medium rare respectively.

Desert was again an underwhelming event, the prepaid flowers for still had the name order in them alongside the card, which is a tiny detail however it spoils the experience when there's secondary pieces of paper stuffed in there, food was uninspiring and didn't live up to any form of expectation, however after the main course we shouldn't of expected much.

Overall, the service is slow, various people serving us through the night, opposed to one dedicated person for the group which we would expect for a large group booking for the cost of the meal, although on the night when we complained we received a bottle of champagne and an apology, it still doesn't correct the mistakes made...

Having heard about Henshin - a new restaurant set on the highest points in Jakarta, and the rating reviews were all above 4.6 in every platform, we decided to spend a lovely evening there.

It was a busy Saturday night that we could only have a table at 9:00 p.m. As we arrived earlier we were waiting at alfresco rooftop bar & lounge. It was true as described that Henshin will elevate you to new heights, and transform your taste buds with zing. Stunning Jakarta skyline view seen from the highest dining destination.

One of the drinks we had was “Geisha”. Taste wasn’t strong enough but what unique about it was the taro powder covering the glass - made us want to lick it like a kid. It was indeed fun and enjoyable.

Been hungry and looking forward to our dinner, we moved in to the dining restaurant exactly at 9 o’clock where the downsides started here...

First of all, the menu’s variety wasn’t great. And then, as we had finished Edamame Nikkei and Beef Sukiyaki for starter we had to wait quite a long time for the main menu. 2 ASADO DE TIRA (slow cooked short rib - watercress - teriyaki sauce - fresh wasabi) were our main menu. Yes, we both chose the same main menu which was a bitter pill. When it came to our table, the presentation didn’t impress us. Three small pieces of rib and a bunch of watercress. When we started eating, we found the ribs were not tender enough to chew and taste was rather plain. For price more than Rp. 400.000 per plate we would expect much better than that. We didn’t bother to finish them. Luckily, we still had Tres 3 (chef’s selected sashimi of the day). It was kind of saver.

Now, can you believe that we were both thinking to have some sweets to overcome the disappointment? And M*D ice cream was the choice!!

I may sound too cynic or maybe fusion food just doesn’t float my boat.

But spending Rp. 3.500.000 for 2 was not worth it.

Ambience...