Ostrea Oyster Bar & Restaurant - Akasaka-Mitsuke — Restaurant in Tokyo

Tourist trap to the extreme - find another place.

This place is very over priced ($45 for 12 oysters - we get same-day caught, high quality in Seattle for $32), has an unspoken / unwritten cover charge, and the other dishes are pretty horrid.

We got risotto that was disgusting, unsalted, and had wilting/browning basil on top and a crab pasta that had only the shell of the crab on it. No crab actually in the dish. The risotto came with mussels and had exactly 2 tiny mussels in it LOL.

We tried to wing it and sometimes you roll the dice and lose in Tokyo’s food scene. This was a loss but your night doesn’t have to be if you skip this place and try someplace else. You’ve got a high probability it’ll be better than this overpriced trap.

It’s also goofy to see 8-9 people staffing this tiny restaurant and them trying to cajole people that walk past to enter… but they over charge for food and forgot one of our dishes. Maybe lay off some of the staff, cut the prices and focus on the customers you already have in...

I dined at this restaurant in Oct 2023. It was incredible. All the food we tried, including the fresh oysters, were amazing. I also had the BLACK fried oyster with crab and a seafood pasta. My husband had a cooked oyster with salmon and mushrooms as well as the grilled swordfish. Everything was delicious. We honestly had a hard time choosing what to order as we wanted everything. The staff was also very friendly. The two staff members we spoke with had great English, but we also communicated in our mediocre Japanese as well. The price was also very fair considering the quality of food.

Not to mention it started pouring rain as we were leaving and the staff offered to give us an umbrella so we didn't get soaked. Very thoughtful of them!

Also to note, we were the only foreigners in the restaurant when we dined, which was late around 8pm. The space was small but very cozy and comfortable.

We'll definitely be back next time...

The food was good, but there were "surprises" that weren't mentioned anywhere. We'll start with the fact that our waitress bugged us for three times until we ordered, and that's after we asked her for a few minutes to look at the menu. When we got the check, we found out that they charged us an extra 390 yen per person, for utensils or whatever they wanted to charge. Then another 10% service charge, that again, wasn't mentioned anywhere. And ofcourse on top of that they charged the extra VAT (which is obviously legit). We expected to pay one thing, and ended up paying about a 1000¥ more.

The only reason for the one star is because of that. Otherwise it would've been a 4 or 5 stars.

Be aware of the extra charges! P.S we ate today...