Kanesaka — Restaurant in Tokyo

I'm giving this place 1 star primarily due to the atmosphere of the restaurant and the attitude of the chef towards foreigners. For the record I speak fluent Japanese but my wife does not. This seemed to have resulted in us getting lumped in with the "annoying tourist" crowd for this restaurant.

I'll get the obvious question out of the way first. For the most part, the food is good. For a Michelin starred restaurant I can see why it gets the star. The problem is that when you're paying 65,800JPY for omakase dinner for two, you want the whole package and you simply will not get it.

When we got there we were sat beside an older, Japanese gentleman with a young lady probably less than half his age. On our other side, we had 2 Swedish(?) guys. Us 4 tourists were served all at once, with the exact same courses. However, the Japanese "couple" beside us seemed to get served very different (and often) expensive special cuts that I certainly didn't hear them order (since I understand Japanese). As far as I can tell, they ONLY have omakase (as we were told when we got there) and so that'd mean that the chef is giving this couple preferential treatment and much fancier stuff than what we got. That by itself left a sour impression from the get go.

What made it worse is that the chef was chitchatting with the Japanese couple the entire 2 hours we were there while basically just dropping the food off on our plate and ignoring us. There seemed to have been absolutely no attempt in trying to tell us more than just the name of what we are eating. Considering that he knew I speak Japanese fluently (as we briefly conversed at the start) he doesn't have the excuse to say he can't speak english to explain things to me. The last course was tamago, but we only realized the meal was over because he started packing his fishes away and closing the shop right in front of us dining customers. The bus boy came to take our plates away, again, without telling us that our meal had ended and we basically just had to take the hint that the meal was done. How about telling your customers that the meal is over? Is that a little bit too much of an effort? Even the most basic omakase in Tsukiji will tell you when the last piece is and there simply is no excuse. We promptly paid and left feeling ripped off.

Considering the fact that you can get basically 95% of the quality of the sushi at 1/10th of the cost at Tsukiji or maybe 1/4 of the cost at any non-starred Michelin restaurants in Tokyo (which there are plenty of), this isn't really worth forking out the money just to be treated like second-class customer over locals.

TLDR: food is good but all things considered way overpriced - can easily get similar quality for fraction of the price. If you're not a local (even if you speak Japanese) you'll get treated like a nuisance at best and will most certainly make you feel neglected. There are plenty of other high end options that will treat you better. Don't make the same...

Just had a terrible experience here. I agree with all the previous reviewers, if you are a foreigner wanting to experience traditional Japanese omakase....go somewhere else! They are unfriendly to foreigners and give rude and very abrupt service. Our 20 piece omakase was SO RUSHED that I didn’t even finish chewing the first piece before the chef plopped down the next piece on my dish! No time to savor the quality of the fish or eat ginger to cleanse my palate for the next. Our whole dinner was less than one hour, they wanted us out of there as quickly as possible. Yes, we are foreigners but we paid just as much as anyone else to be there. 38,000 yen per person to be exact plus drinks. We were nothing but polite, courteous, quiet and were on time. I didn’t even dare to take pictures of my food like I normally do. I must say they probably give foreigners lower quality fish because some of the pieces were fishy tasting. Also, my fiancé is allergic to shellfish so they simply didn’t bother substituting any dishes for him. They gave me the shrimp, uni, crab and tamago while he just sat there and watched me eat it. This place does not deserve any Michelin stars! I was so disappointed. We had just dined two days earlier at two Michelin starred Jungsik in Seoul and was delighted with their food and service. This trip was our international foodie fine dining vacation, but this left a sour note. I will happily take my business where...

Let me start with the obvious - it’s a two michelin star restaurant in a big global city…it’s going to be expensive. I’m sure there’s other great sushi restaurants without the accolades that are cheaper but if you’re walking into a place like this you should be ready for a big bill. Now that we put that aside…this was an incredible meal. The setting is beautiful with a long wooden sushi counter that seats 8 - very spacious and plenty of viewing opportunity for the guests to see the chef’s work. The plates are all works of art. There are two chef’s behind the counter, I counted at least one or two in the kitchen, and then another two handling service needs. You will be well attended to here and everyone is incredibly friendly and happy that you’ve joined them for dinner. Their primary concern is your enjoyment and it makes the meal very memorable. The fish here is incredibly fresh and expertly cut and shaped for your enjoyment. Chef was proud to point out he goes to the market daily and that his Uni was from car 1 of the shipment - best of the best. It appears they do their seatings in two waves, but not everyone seemed to get the same course at the same time or even in the same order. That said it did seem like we all eventually got the same things. I’d also note for our seating, all 8 seats were occupied by foreigners. Not a bad thing, but definitely in contrast to our previous...