Kozue — Restaurant in Tokyo

This may have been the worst meal and experience in my whole life! I brought my girlfriend here for our anniversary dinner after getting a recommendation from a friend - boy was that a mistake.

First of all, the staff seemed confused and uncoordinated at all times. We were having multiple staff members asking us the same questions (i.e., "would you like to order a drink?" - asked 3 times) which resulted in missed orders. We tried to order wine and were told they had a bottle available, which in turn they came back a few minutes later and told us they only have 3/4 of a bottle left. We politely said we would find a different bottle of wine, and much to our surprise a group that sat next to us an hour later received the same bottle of wine we initially inquired about.

The food was honestly pretty terrible. I have a lot of tolerance, especially in a foreign country, but this is supposed to be a high-end restaurant. A majority of the sashimi was half frozen, the seaweed smelled like manure and tasted rotten, and the shabu shabu top pot was provided with little instruction. The latter being the biggest issue. The waitress came over and gave us the top pot and said we should wait for the pot to heat up a bit. We asked for further instruction and she said she would return. Much to our surprise again, she never came back and we were left to figure it out on our own. This would not normally be an issue as we had had Shabu Shabu before, but a few minutes later we looked over and there were two, what seemed to be more senior managers of the restaurant, individually cooking and serving another individual each serving, waiting on him in a manner that we had expected.

I am unsure if the overall treatment was due to us being foreigners, but we were extremely disappointed in the wait staff. And to think this cost us close to $400 USD was a tough pill to swallow.

Don't waste your money! You are much better off trying other kaiseke restaurants if you want a better experience. I would never recommend this...

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience here - delicious food, very attentive, helpful and knowledgeable waiting staff, dressed to fit the kaiseki experience and a great view to boot. Of course it's not cheap but it's not unexpected for what you get - I guess it's one for special occasions. A couple of things to mention, however, I think there is a bar upstairs to the restaurant and it is not physically separated, i.e. you can hear what's going on up there (but access is separated), so depending on what is going on up there (as you can imagine, things happening at a bar) it can be detrimental to the atmosphere at the restaurant too. I almost didn't get there in time, as there are front and back entry to the building and it is not obvious which entry is to be used for the restaurant (wasn't to me, with Google map, in the dark) which way was to the restaurant. I'd do a bit of research to be sure. All that said, I'd recommend Kozue and visit again next...

After watching Lost in Translation, I thought dinner at Kozue overlooking all of the city would be a quaint first dinner on our anniversary vacation in Tokyo. The ambiance did not disappoint - however, the food was abysmal. I cannot stress how disappointed and actually angry I was (and still am) by this dinner. Both my husband and I eat at fine dining establishments regularly; we lived in NYC for 10 years and are well-traveled to major “foodie” cities, specifically for the purpose of eating good food. Kozue’s food was legitimately subpar - bland at best, and inedible at worst. We prayed for the courses to be over. Come here for a drink and the view, but...