Amami — Restaurant in Mellieha

Unexpectedly good! Sometimes what presents itself as high end Japanese fare can be hit and miss. But we were pleasantly surprised by friendly service, beautifully cooked food and delicious cocktails.

We started with crispy duck spring rolls which I enjoyed but mostly for texture and dipping sauce. The duck felt bland to my partner but I enjoyed. Maybe a touch more freshness to bring out the duck flavour as it doesn’t particularly strong. Tuna tartare with avocado with tortilla chips and cod’s roe. The sauce was a bit reminiscent of burger sauce and we found it a bit odd but it was a nice dish when all sampled together. The freshly shucked oysters with yuzu kosher vinaigrette came already dressed and were delicious. Tad gritty so could have been dunked a little better but a nice flavour combo.

For mains, robata mixed skewers and char siu beef ribs with shemeji mushrooms and glaze which arrived flaming at the table. We opted for prawn fried rice (more like prawn tempura and the batter didn’t remain crispy unfortunately but tasty nonetheless). Glad we didn’t get noodles as would have been too much food. Wish we tried the sushi as looked incredible going to other tables! The meat and tofu were cooked wonderfully on both the skewers and beef ribs.

Lost points as really good food but a few tweaks to perfect it (crispy tempura, bits mentioned above etc) and that would make it go from really good to great! Also service was good but a couple of hiccups. Asked for a glass of ice to a lovely young server who forgot it. Waitress delivered within minutes when asked again. Same thing happened again when asking for the bill and then when we asked again, it took a further ten minutes. It was a Friday night and clearly busy so totally get it!

A really nice spot with good cocktails overlooking the sea! Can get a discount when staying...

We returned after a good lunch experience.

Would like to extend our heartfelt thanks and commend the manager who attended to us on the evening of July 29th. We encountered an issue with our food, and he promptly ensured that our dish was replaced with one we could enjoy. Throughout our visit, his service was both attentive and professional. We also observed him diligently taking care of other guests and working behind the scenes to maintain the restaurant's top-notch standards. Remarkably, he personally climbed up multiple times to clean and dry condensation from the air-conditioning vents to prevent water from dripping onto tables. The quality of service was fantastic, and the other staff members were equally welcoming.

FOOD: 🔸️ Fried rice with prawns 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩 Slightly spicy, full of umami. Generous portion and satisfying.

🔸️ Amani Mix Platter 🤩🤩🤩 16 pieces nigiri and rolls. Ok and filling. Raw fish pieces were too wet and seem to have sat at room temperature for too long and don't taste as fresh as they should.

🔸️ Sotom Salad 🤩🤩🤩 Fruity salad. Crunchy.

🔸️ Char siu beef short ribs 🤩 A flaming spectacle of de-boned short ribs. Meat was dry and not tasty. The sauce lacks the sweet + savoury + sticky harmony signature of the Cantonese recipe. The shimeji mushrooms didn't go with the ribs and were on the raw side.

🔸️ Fried rice with shredded duck 🤩 It should have been the same recipe as the version with prawns but this dish was bland and the duck meat were...

Great food, nice atmosphere but staff can be more prepared.

Party of 2. For appetizers, we ordered dragon roll, new style beef roll, and spicy salmon roll. For main, we had the duck breast and the seabass. New style beef roll has potential but we found it wanting. Seabass was nice but not memorable.

The main shortcoming of the restaurant is staff training. The staff is friendly and nice; however, they need a bit of training specially for a restaurant of this caliber. Restaurant has potential of an end to end transcending experience. E.g. staff: "you must order a side dish with the main dishes". It took a second to understand that what he meant is that the main dishes come naked - nothing supporting them. I would have rather hear: "sir, I would like to recommend you to order a side dish to complement your main dish since it is not included". Another e.g., the staff did not know what type of teas they have on hand. We ordered without knowing what type of tea we will get which is shocking for a Japanese place. Note, the expected behavior is that they would check and let us know - sadly not what happened.

Real shout out to the kitchen staff. I am a fan of open kitchen layout. Gives real overview of their mastery.

Note I usually end my review with quality price ratio reflection however being a tourist I find it hard to reflect fairly on that. However, I do find fried vegetables side dish costing 7 euros is a...