Sushi Fanatics — Restaurant in Amsterdam

Since a couple of my friends left reviews I thought it was only necessary as the person whose birthday it was to leave a full explanation as to our disappointment with the service at sushi fanatics on 09.08.2025. It is painful to leave this review considering we love the food at sushi fanatics and have been there several times for many special occasions. However our last visit left a bitter taste in our mouth and the response of management to the situation only exacerbated that feeling.

Contrary to the incredibly defensive posture taken by the owner in response to my friends review (which unfortunately speaks further to the problem), our disappointment with the service was not linked to us not receiving "freebies" but rather in 3 factors; 1) general attitude of the staff 2) subpar quality of actual server performance and 3) being charged over what we ordered.

Specifically, as my friend mentioned when we sat down all of us were excited to have a great meal for my birthday. Out of such excitement I mentioned that it was my birthday to one of the staff members to which he responded "yes sure" and practically rolling his eyes, which we found incredibly odd and cold from a server (coming from a person who used to work as a waiter). We tried to waive it off, however once we were done with our main course the staff did not pick up the dirty plates till our departure which was about 40-50 minutes post main dish. We thought initially that they might be busy however we could see them chitchatting and laughing near the cash register for a long while. We noticed a similar situation on other tables. The dirty plates were attracting many flies to our table and preventing us from enjoying the dessert.

We further asked if the staff could put a candle in to the desert that we ordered, to which one of the members of staff answered that it's not possible. When we asked why (since during our last birthday celebration at sushi fanatics they provided the candles and gave us a free desert which was not necessary but very nice) they mentioned that since then the policy must have changed.

When we were paying for the bill we mentioned our confusion regarding the candles and the desert not because we wanted freebies but just an explanation as to why the policy changed since our last visit which was not too long ago. The manager started pushing us to tell him which waiter it was because they must deal with him since providing candles and free desert is absolutely not allowed to begin with and told us we were "lucky" the last time and shouldn't expect any free deserts.

This statement particularly puzzled us, where we were aiming to clarify the inconsistency in the policy regarding candles/birthdays, the manager got defensive and instead of apologizing for the inconsistency started grilling us about the staff and tried to pass us up as some sort of freeloaders (a sentiment further reflected in their response to my friends' review) which yet again is odd considering we are repeat customers and our bill on my birthday and our previous visits was always around around 200€.

Finally, to add insult to injury after checking the bill they charged us 3 extra glasses of tap water than we have actually had (we drank 8 glasses but they charged us for 11) which usually would not be a big deal but considering their tap water per glass costs 80 cents and in combination with their attitude further dampened our experience.

I have reviewed many places and strive to be a fair reviewer and I try to give restaurants some benefit of doubt, however after witnessing their insensitivity during our last visit it was apparent that the staff was only interested in ensuring that their behinds are covered rather than being understanding of our genuine and well founded confusion. The response to my friends' review only cemented that feeling, displaying how irrational and out of touch the restaurant management is, trying to somehow involve "matcha shortage" in a discussion about their service quality which genuinely gave me a good laugh. I hope this...

I have changed my review from two stars to one, and if there is a chance that i could rate no star, I would definitely do so. I shall check how I could report the dishonest response from this restaurant. If any readers here can get me to the right direction on an official complaint about this restaurant, please let me know.

First, this restaurant owner/ respondent obviously has gone through some of my other restaurant reviews. And I could swear to god that every review that I have made here or any where else is very honest, direct, with evidence and no lies! The respondent of this sushifanatic assumes that i am a restaurant owner just because i have mentioned that in one of my reviews that i have passed a social hygiene certification. I would like to clarify here that I did the qualification for fun, and for my passion to understand the horeca industry more and I do not own any other restaurants, NONE, not in the Netherlands or any other countries. Writing reviews is just a hobby and sharing my honest experience to other food lovers! Personally think the response of this restaurant is very arrogant and does not show any respect to customers at all and making alot of their own assumptions on their food quality, racism, checking my background etc. Yet, I shall let the food lovers who read my reviews to decide. Period!

Very disappointed and thinking it is overly rated and overpriced here. Tuna nigiri described -50c degree shock fish at sea, ultra freshness, although we do not know what it actually means, but we love Tuna, so ordered two pieces, turned out they are just ordinary normal, not particularly ultra fresh compared to other sushi restaurants or takeaway. Hokkigai and Hotate Flambé are ok, but not Tamago. We know that Tamago could tell how good is a sushi chef, guess the chef needs more practice. The Ikura Gunkan is less than a thumb size for €2.7 per piece. The creative maki are smaller and not very tasty despite they use good ingredients and price is slightly more expensive than others. We are not big appetite people, and spending over €60 for two for takeaway lunch and not enough, think it is pricey considering its quality. Service is not Japanese polite way, just past over the takeaway bag, no thank you. Maybe is language barrier, the lady tried to answer my questions in broken english saying she is from Hong kong and their chef is from Japanese. Last but not least and why I was thinking about a one star is some plastic came inside the ultra thin salmon flambé nigiri and the ebi nigiri of the chef’s...

Unfortunately I had an unexpected negative experience with this place and it concerned both ordering food and service.

We booked beforehand and got our places. We needed to scan QR-code to order from the web site, it was not easy to connect to the service and the menu was not easy to read, it took time to choose. Sure if were here often it was no problem to get used to the menu, but it was not quick for a new visitor as the web site had too much text, no pictures and small letters in several languages.

We ordered dumplings, drinks, different sushi sets and then even macha desserts. Two of us wanted similar sets of sushi and we ordered 2 times 4 sushi rolls of one kind and 2 times 4 rolls of another type (they cost cheeper if we took 8 pieces of each type). They served everything together on one plate. I asked our waitress to put them on different plates as it was for 2 people, we set on different sides of a wide table. And why would I order 2 times 4 rolls instead of 1 time 8 rolls if I get them on one plate anyway? To pay extra? The waitress refused helping. She said there was our bill so we should fix it ourselves. She didn’t offer extra plate or anything. I asked her to put them on different plates AGAIN but she would not do it anyway!

The worst happened at the end when we could not split the bill. They said that if you scanned the same QR-code while ordering you couldn’t split the bill. And it was only one QR-code at the table. We were from different countries and it was troublesome for us sending money to each other but still one of us had to pay. Not being able to split the bill in Holland is a complete nonsense!

And last but not least. The food was just ok but not amazing. Considering the price I would say it was overpriced. All in all ok place but I would neither...