Jushu — Restaurant in Tokyo

Let me try to rate this as objectively as possible.

But first my personal opinion :D: delicious food (7 or 8 courses) and a lot of it! even a little too much in the end, nice ambiente, nice variation, excellent sake drinks. I am not even a big fan of fancy seafood dishes like clams and crabs - here however, they know the secret of how to make most of them super tasty instead of just "acceptable when I'm hungry".

I was quite concerned, reading some of the other reviews on Google... Let's get some things straight:

They served us really nice food with lovely equipment, cutlery, glasses, etc. I did not see any plastic or throwaway stuff. Neither can I relate to comments on dirty bathrooms or open doors. I am not saying others lied, but it was not like that, when we were there! nice waitress who spoke English to us and explained a little, the chef himself (I am pretty sure it was him and not his trusted second) did not really speak English which I found unfortunate. Nonetheless they were happy to answer any questions we had. as far as quality is concerned: I have only been to a Michelin star rated restaurant back home in Germany, which I found to be quite different. Back home it was more of a super sophisticated adventure, here they cared little about etiquette or rules, it was more about the food. Portions were a little bigger and ingredients a little less extravagant - they pick the best of what the sea and plants can offer and transform it to something special. I guess it's just hard to compare the two of them. Only the beef I was a little disappointed with... but that's just me, someone else said he or she liked this one the most. I want to add, that the two couples, who were dining next to us, were both non-first-timers. I consider this to be a good sign of quality, one US-couple returned for a second time and the other ones were locals who come by every 3 months and said they tried various restaurants in the area - "this one is the best". after some glasses of sake we had very nice talks with the waitress and the other couples, almost a familiar atmosphere which I really enjoyed. we really enjoyed the food, company and atmosphere! The reason why I rate 4 instead of 5 stars, is the following: considering the high price I would have expected even more of a treatment - more explanation, more show, more value (other than food quality). I paid around 260 USD via omakase online booking plus drinks, maybe you can get it cheaper booking directly. I think, about 100 to 150 would have been a reasonable price for food and expertise considering how well you can easily dine everywhere in Japan. For the rest I would have loved to see more of a cooking show, maybe having the chef explain where he got the food and so on.

I hope this rating helps :). All in all it was a great experience, I don't regret it at all! - I would come back if I'd get it a...

Ate a lovely dinner here and really enjoyed the cozy, homey atmosphere. Wasn’t a problem for us but I can definitely see some people being upset about the decor showing wear. The service was incredible. In my opinion, it definitely beats the service in larger restaurants. At the end of our meal, the chef even escorted us out. The only thing I’d note is that it’s not very tourist-friendly in the way that it’s difficult to communicate in any language other than Japanese. Though the chef tried to introduce/explain the dishes in English, we ended up very confused about what we were eating.

Dishes we enjoyed the most include the fried eel, tuna sashimi, beef (wagyu steak?), Japanese spinach (a delightful and refreshing follow-up to the heavy steak), and matcha ice cream sandwich. All the fish and meat looked and tasted very fresh; it felt like we were eating meat from a tuna that had just been caught mere minutes prior. All ingredients were of extremely high quality as well. I have no words to describe the preparation of dishes. You could truly feel the passion the chef has for culinary arts in each bite.

We were the only ones at the restaurant during the first hour, so dishes came out one after another. After the restaurant was filled, dishes came out slower, but still incredibly fast for a restaurant run by 2 people.

The only thing I wasn’t impressed by was how the dessert tasted store-bought. Though we saw the chef scoop the matcha ice cream into the rice crackers, both ingredients felt store bought and like something we could have gotten from a grocery store.

From what I’ve seen online, dishes change each season and with the availability of certain ingredients, which would make every visit different and a welcome surprise. The dinner was quite expensive though. This being said, the ingredients are of extremely high quality and the dishes are worth every cent. For those who wish to try high-quality Japanese dishes, I cannot recommend this...

Verdict: Avoid at all costs The restaurant is located in the nice neighborhood in Nishiazabu, where plenty of Michelin-starred restaurants are located.

Food: For 20,000+ yen, you get basically a meal of lots of fish and almost nothing else. Fugu, Unagi, Tuna, and some other fishes that we don’t recognize. These 8 dishes took more than 3 hours, which is not acceptable. Plus a dessert bought from other vendors. I had a food allergy which I mentioned on the reservation form and reconfirmed with the server prior to meal, but still wasn’t accommodated.

Service: Non-existent but still charges you 10%, if you don’t ask the server what the dish is. They’ll not explain which is absurd. Foreigners are required to PAY IN ADVANCE on Pocket-Concierge but still the chef sent the initial bill with full amount.

Establishment: Restaurant is showing wear. The bathroom is dirty. The door is somehow left open many times with cold wind blowing in and nobody notices.

WORST OF ALL: The tableware is made of plastic out-layer, which one of the top reviewers had mentioned.

This restaurant used to have 2 stars and now 1 star, and will probably lose that soon. Again, avoid at all costs while plenty of good...