Nama — Restaurant in Bergen

The restaurant is not as good as it was several years ago. The taste has changed much for food. There was wasabi mixed in many food. We ordered salmon with honey. But there is wasabi mixed in the inner part. We asked the waitress before ordered it. She confirmed it was not spicy and suitable for kid! We also ordered kings crab cake at the recommendation of the waitress. It is super hot for us. So my son did not eat it. We ordered chicken wings. But they are almost black carbons(almost burned)

The price was 970 kr with only the food and free water. After such a surprisingly bad experience, we did not want to order more. If the food was good, I would be gladly accept the price. But 970kr for such bad food, I will not come back again. Ripped off!

By the way. The first Waitress seemed not welcome us at all because we had only two persons me and my son. We arrived at about 18:00. The inner part of the restaurant was almost empty but we are guided to the smallest table without a candle lamps. All the other tables have lamps. All in all, this isn’t the same Nama as the one back to some years ago. You will get ripped off by bad food.

Restauranten er ikke så god som før. Smake har forandret mye. Det er wasabi som blender i mange mat. Vi bestilt laks med honning til barn. Servitør anbefalt den også. Hun så den er ikke sterk. Men wasabi er blendet i mat på innerst del også! Vi bestilt kongen krab kake etter spøtt servitør også. Hun bekrefte at den er ikke sterk. Men det er kjempe sterk til oss. Da barnet har ikke spist maten. Pris var ca 970kr for jeg og gutten min. Kun for mat. Vi drukket vann og vi har ikke lyst å spise mer etter den dårlig opplevelsen. Det er dyrt. Hvis middagen var god, ville jeg gjerne betale for den. men 970 for dårlig mat, vil vi ikke komme tilbake igjen. Foresten, det ser ut at de er ikke interessert å har os som gjest fordi vi har bare 2 (en voksen og et barn). Innerst rom var nesten helt tom ca kl 18:00 men vi få bare sitt på den minst bordet uten lys. Alle andre borde...

First the good: My wife and 2 late teens are Japanese food/sushi addicts and consider ourselves connoisseurs, having had great Japanese food all over the world, including Japan and several other locations in Norway. The food at Nama was exceptional and among the best Japanese restaurants we have experienced in Europe.

The problem was the service. I want to give kudos to the 2 unfortunate servers tasked with handling the entire front of the house alone. They had to not only wait all of the tables but also act as bartenders and bussers. We were seated and waited an entire hour just to get water and place drink orders. We watched as the 2 servers ran around like crazy trying to keep up. At one point, one of the 2 chefs stepped out to help serve (the restaurant was maybe 25% full). It was an eternity before we got water or could even place our food order to our poor, frazzled waitress, who was understandably exhausted but trying her best to provide good customer service under impossible conditions.

We witnessed several parties get up and leave and several who entered and when warned of the wait time chose to bring their business elsewhere. As the evening drew on and the restaurant cleared out, our order finally completed, over 2 hours after arriving.

The owners of the restaurant are negligent in their decision to understaff this potentially phenomenal restaurant, and it is both the waitstaff and the customers who pay the price.

As great as the food was, I cannot endorse an establishment that clearly cares so little for its employees and customers. It may be the "oldest sushi restaurant in Bergen," but that is no excuse to charge 5 star prices but provide 1 star service....

The review by "dongle seon" below is exactly how I feel about this place. Sadly the purity of the ingredients suffers in the interest of creating "fusion" flavours.

As a note - I had the 1200 NOK Chef's Menu.

A couple of important points about Japanese food are missed here:

Subtlety - The flavours in Japanese cuisine (particularly sushi and sashimi) are subtle and nuanced. Fresh ingredients are the centrepiece - Its preparation is about complementing and enhancing the purity of the high quality ingredients being used and letting them shine through.

Bergen has access to some of the freshest and most beautiful seafood the world has to offer and Nama does use it - however slathering it with various heavy-handed sauces means it is impossible to experience this resulting in a failure to meet both points #1 and #2.

I'm not sure if there is better in Bergen, but if you've had high class Japanese and fusion food before then you would know that this is not it.

This is disappointing as the service is great, the staff are lovely and the restaurant itself is pretty cool, so it actually does really well in every other aspect - in spite of the price (it's expensive even for Bergen).

The one dish I did enjoy was the dessert at the end. The Matcha-Chocolate Fondant is excellent though I felt that popcorn and strawberry slices didn't really belong on the plate.

However, if you did enjoy Nama, then you will definitely enjoy Nobu as they both aspire to the...