Musashi Sky Restaurant — Restaurant in Tokyo

We were very excited to eat at 634 Skytree restaurant on top of the Skytree Tower. We've eaten in similar restaurants on top of the towers in Seattle and Toronto, and expected over the top amazing food along with the views. In the end we had a mixed experience where I enjoyed the food a lot, and my wife ended up crying because she was so unhappy with the meal.

(Also, and this isn’t there fault, but the other 2 similar towers we had dined at had rotating restaurants so we saw changing views in every direction while seated. Not so with the Skytree which does not rotate.)

Initially I was very impressed with all of the communication with the restaurant, all of which was done in advance by email. They were very responsive and seem to want to really get it right in terms of the ingredients that we could and couldn't eat. This is important to both me and my wife as I am a vegetarian, and she has been experimenting with a gluten-free and dairy free diet, occasionally eating fish. It was important for them to know what we were eating in advance because when you get to the restaurant they already have it prepared for you. Like many restaurants in Japan when you make a reservation you choose a course in advance. (A course is really a series of dishes.)

I was pretty happy with what I received as a vegetarian. The asparagus with orange cream is something I'll be dreaming about forever. A salad with a bouquet of tiny vegetables was pretty amazing. Their bread roll was soft like a pillow and perfect with olive oil. I was a little concerned that they thought I might be a vegan as sometimes bread is served with butter and they might have been bringing me olive oil because they thought I didn’t eat dairy. I asked the server about this because I wanted to make sure that they understood that I ate eggs and dairy to not limit what the future courses were. I was using a translation app provided by Google, and when I asked about this, and he responded into the app, the translation came back "I am a virgin." That caused a great deal of laughter on my part as can happen with these strange translation situations, but the waiter seemed almost offended by it and it created an added element of awkwardness for the rest of the meal. As it turned out future dishes that were brought to me did have dairy in them so it was fine.

They also served me an eggplant dish which was good for my wife who loves eggplant although it came with cheese crisps and a cheese ball, all of which I liked. And there was also a special fruit-based dessert with a little mocha ice cream on it which was very good. I also enjoyed the post-check cookies dessert which came with 1 butter cookie, a profiterole, a lemon macaroon, and a flourless chocolate bite. All of these were perfectly small portions and very tasty.

The real issue which informed our experience overall here was what they brought my wife. When she told them in advance she could eat some fish and generally wanted to be gluten-free and dairy free they interpreted that as creating a meal which was almost exclusively all fish. She was brought course after course of fish, some of which was overcooked, and ultimately made her feel sad as she saw these beautifully prepared vegetarian dishes which were suitable for her diet being brought to me (I shared of course). This was the most expensive restaurant we went to in Japan, and they really missed the mark in terms of what they brought her.

After so many emails back-and-forth ahead of dining here, it was a very disappointing experience for my wife, and the least favorite thing we did in Japan as a result. We would...

I had an incredibly disappointing and frustrating experience at Skytree in Tokyo on Sunday, June 30th, at 5 PM with a party of seven. Despite the ease of getting to the building and following the signs to the check-in desk, the atmosphere was chaotic and overly busy. After checking in, we endured a 10-minute wait in line just to get to the elevator to the restaurant.

Upon arrival, the restaurant was practically empty since it had just opened, but the service was shockingly mediocre. We were given a preset dinner menu explaining a 7-course meal costing a ridiculous $190 per person, excluding beverages. Although we were offered an upgrade to Kobe beef for the main course, no one bothered to ask us our preference when the meal started.

The food was an utter disappointment. The presentation was a joke—dishes seemed to be haphazardly thrown together on a plate with no consideration for fine dining. Portions were miserably small, and the flavors were bizarre and bitter. The meal was so unappetizing that I couldn’t even finish any of the courses. Describing this food as Japanese prepared in a French style is an insult to both cuisines.

To add insult to injury, we were forced to pay an additional fee for the viewing deck, which we never got to properly enjoy. After our disappointing meal, we attempted to access the viewing deck, only to find it completely overrun by a crowd of hundreds. The glass floor, meant to offer a breathtaking view from 350 meters above the ground, was entirely covered with confused, aimless people. It took over an hour to escape this claustrophobic nightmare due to only one working elevator and a single exit route.

For nearly $230 per person, I left feeling robbed, still hungry, and utterly irritated by the appalling lack of organization and abysmal customer experience. It’s outrageous that there wasn’t a separate access area for restaurant patrons. To top it all off, the view of Tokyo was dull and gray due to the weather, which, while not their fault, just added to the misery of the whole experience.

Overall, Skytree was a complete waste of time and money. Save yourself the trouble and avoid this place at all costs if you’re looking for fine dining or a decent...

TERRIBLY DISAPPOINTING // TOTAL SHAM ~ STAY AWAY We were a large group of 12 guests - including 10 vegetarian. The restaurant ostensibly claims to cater to vegetarian preferences - they insisted on only allowing us to reserve/ order the most expensive 18,000 yen French course dinner meal. An exorbitant $1300 was also locked into our credit card as a security hold. The main course was JUST BOILED VEGETABLES - shreds of lettuce, two slivers of bell pepper, mushroom, and copious amounts of olive oil, with ZERO SALT, wrapped in PLASTIC (apparently, they chose to frigging sous vide the vegetables). Apart from this, a few teaspoons-full of corn soup, gazpacho, and some bland appetizer was served (all sizes that would befit a sparrow and not a human). We had to repeatedly request for bread as there was NOTHING else served with the appetizers or mains. Everything beautifully presented, but the beauty was just skin deep - NOTHING was even properly seasoned and hardly had any depth of flavor. We had NO VEG-FRIENDLY PROTEIN or a suitable substitute for the mains. We were mortified at how we were swindled by this restaurant. The cost of the ingredients would've barely amounted to $15 as against the course price of $110 (and, I am being generous with that estimation). Their biggest spread was dessert (believe it or not) - melon in 4 ways, one tiny piece each of canelé, biscotti, and chocolate. THAT'S IT. The staff never bothered to explain any of the dishes - we had to request repeatedly. 4 guests ordered Japanese whisky (at 2000 yen/ $15 a serving) and it was heavily watered down - so much so that guests were picking out the ice as they just couldn't taste anything. This is a sham of the century. In a city like Tokyo, you have options 100X better than this for the same price tag. These guys are swindling people in...