Minato — Restaurant in Herzliya

Minato is an attractive, relaxing venue offering food in the Japanese tradition. A variety of vegetarian and fish dishes are offered, along with some meat dishes. The central theme of the restaurant is sushi, but there are cooked dishes, including soups, pan-fried and deep fried dishes and dishes from the oven as well.

Minato clings to authentic Japanese recipes but with mostly local ingredients, avoiding the eclectic menus based on Vietnamese cooking one finds in many Asian restaurants in Israel.

We were served a complimentary bowl of edamame, and quickly ordered a cocktail to start - Mojito Passionfruit. This was a sweet cocktail with a slight tang, decorated with a tiny hot red pepper. My companion, who generally avoids anything spicy, really liked this cocktail.

I had the fish bouillon with udon noodles (32 shekels), with a distinct pleasant fish and ginger flavor. I needed the chopsticks to eat the thick udon noodles, which kept jumping out of the traditional Japanese soup spoon.

For our first shared dish, we had the Tempura Panko inside-out sushi, eight pieces with seared salmon, cucumber avocado and red onion. Very pleasant.

We shared two main dishes, one from the fryer and one in a very hot frying pan. The deep fried pieces of sea bream (denis in Hebrew coated in tempura, was served with a bowl of tentsuyu sauce for dipping. This was our first experience with tenstuyu, and we found it enhanced the flavor of the tempura coated fish. Then we share the White Grouper Yaki, fish seared a pan with a delicate sauce with asparagus and scallions. Both dishes were lovely, light but satisfying.

Desert was not necessary, but we ended with the Mochi, a roll of non-dairy ice cream shaped like sushi, coated with...

We arrived without a reservation on a Sunday evening. Despite the restaurant being half empty, we were only offered one small table in the middle of the room. There were many more comfortable tables available, but they were set for four people and they allowed couples to sit there only if they argued. We didn't argue, so we ended up sitting by the aisle, while another couple started argueing and sat where they wanted. The comfortable tables outside remained empty until we left. It seems wrong to me that real guests aren't allowed to choose a pleasant place beacuse of those who might potentially come. Especially considering that the restaurant was less than 50% full. Another unpleasant moment was when we ordered a cocktail and while they were preparing it, something fell into it, and they started fishing it out. Then our waiter noticed that I was watching the process and gestured to the bartender to remove the drink from sight. In the end, they brought the cocktail in a different glass, and I'm not sure if they made a new one or simply retrieved the fallen item on the kitchen. In terms of service, there were other skrew-ups as well: the table was dirty when we sat, dirty dishes weren't cleared in a timely manner, we were given someone else's bill, and also they didn't bring cold water. The food wasn't very enjoyable either. I follow minato on Instagram, and everything looked very appetizing in the photos, but it didn't taste good. The portions of rolls are very small, the tartar's texture is very weird - like ground beef. I won't recommend this restaurant to anyone primarily because of the bad service. We spent 400 shekels on 2 rolls, 1 salad, 1 tartar, 1...

So disappointing, I've been to Minato many times, would always come back for the delicious authentic Japanese food, never for the service. This time, they truly pushed it. We arrived 10 minutes late, the table wasn't even ready, we stood there for another 5 minutes, a few moments later i asked if we could sit now and she looked at me saying "oh nobody told you the table is ready now? I'm sorry" ok great that's fine, anyway, While looking at the menu we noticed how loud the restaurant was, but it wasn't noise from the people talking or the music, it was the waitresses, Ahmashyot, whoever they were, like maybe 7 of them talking and laughing very loudly right next to the bar (the restaurant is small so you can hear everything) I'm sorry am I having dinner at the beach ? I've never experienced such bad service at such an expensive and fancy restaurant, we were ignored so many times, so many waitresses around us yet none of them would take care of us like they should, The food was great, as always, but the service ruins it, you can't enjoy it, it just doesn't match, the food you get next to the service you get. Please train your waiters and waitresses, the restaurant is classy, elegant, serves quality food, please put the same effort in the training...