Ginza Sushi Ichi BKK — Restaurant in Lumphini Subdistrict

I visited the worst Michelin stared Restaurant. (so you don’t have to)

Interior:

The interior typical sushi restaurant design, which however had its best years at least five years ago. Apart from that, minimalism is still an art, because here in this case the minimal interior looks very impersonal, without soul.

Staff:

The waiters are eager but lack good training. And manage to completely deprive you of the calm you need for omakase. Someone is constantly walking around you or standing next to you or even behind you. As I said, friendly but useless. The sushi chef is quiet and seems happy to be done with his work, hardly any interaction and lacks skill.

Food, drinks and ingredients:

The sushi is of various quality, the sashimi nothing special and not worthy of the high price. For me the quality of a sushi restaurant is easy measured by the quality of the uni and how tough the squid or mussels are. The uni is some watery pile and the squid and mussels are tougher than an retired lorry driver’s bottom. In conclusion the sushi and sashimi course is from questionable quality, as if they compromise in quality to maximise earnings. I had much fresher and higher quality sushi in supermarkets. The Chūtoro for example was watery and had a fishy smell.

The other courses of the omakase are of cheap izakaya quality at best, but by no means the quality of a 1-star Michelin restaurant. The order of the menu is not really an order, it seems random. The desert is 2 pieces of unripe fruit, if you taught it can’t get any worse.

The wine list is as if someone has made an effort to find really bad wines (none gets above a 3.7 on vivino), I can't say much about the sake, but from the names it looks like a standard menu, other drinks nothing exceptional, beer from the bottle a few soft drinks. There is very overpriced champagne on the menu, but not good Champagne it is obviously more for social prestige and Instagram than for enjoyment.

Conclusion:

How this restaurant can hold a star is one of the biggest mysteries of recent years. After having eaten in 80-100 Michelin restaurants, I have to say that this is my new low.

The restaurant is located in the basement of an aging shopping mall, the interior of the restaurant is past its prime, you are sitting alone in a restaurant on a day when it should be busy withe a terrible and a ridiculous overpriced menu, this is a combination that makes you realise this is what depression must feel like or this is how it manifests in a restaurant.

The sashimi/sushi itself is worth below 1000 THB the rest not 200 THB just rubbish quality but you spend with two drinks well over 8000 bath and I have to say this was the worst Michelin restaurant I have ever visited and not worth a star or even a visit for a third of the price.

This restaurant really deserves to be completely empty and it may sounds cynical but if that was your (reading other reviews) best sushi or omakase experience I feel very sorry for you.

This is just below average dull sushi/sashimi with a random appetiser and not at...

Unfortunately, I have to say that our omakase evening at Ginza Sushi-Ichi was a less than satisfying experience.

The food, of course, was excellent, and I’m sure the quality and provenance of ingredients was exemplary. But to truly appreciate such a meal you need some input rather than just having the food plonked in front of you. A little information about the fish and other dishes such as the origin, the condiments added, the seasonality, etc. And this is where Ginza Sushi-Ichi Bangkok falls way short in my view. The only interaction we had with the chefs was a single word in Japanese as each course was served (the name of each nigiri placed on our plate, or so I assume). The waitress didn’t add much, merely a short announcement of each dish in English and Thai, and the extent of her English and knowledge didn’t really prompt any further discussion.

So the whole thing fell very, very flat — much more so than at many simple but good sushi bars you can sit at in Bangkok or elsewhere around the world (including Japan) and converse, even if there are language difficulties, with enthusiastic sushi chefs.

Like in any restaurant (omakase or not) it isn’t ALL about the food. The decor, the ambience, the buzz, the liveliness and personalities of the staff — all these combine when done right to deliver a memorable evening. Here, I rather felt I was sitting in a yellow-lit funeral parlour waiting room. There was zero atmosphere in the room which (although recognising Japanese tradition) in my view was unimaginative and uninviting, and the lighting definitely felt not quite right. And finally, for such a high-end restaurant I found the location a little odd— the basement floor of a shopping mall where we had to dodge the re-stocking carts of a minimart next door to get to the entrance of Ginza Sushi-Ichi (the blurb says it’s in the Grand Hyatt Erawan, but it’s actually in the adjoining mall)

The big question many would ask is: is it worth the price paid. In my view absolutely not, and after three such disappointing experiences at globally-awarded Japanese restaurants in Kyoto, Singapore and now Bangkok, I hope I have learned my lesson. I believe I have had equally good food at half or two-thirds the price several times (most recently at the Hyatt Regency Hakone last year) with better ambience and much more communicative chefs who actually enjoy serving their guests rather than being totally immersed in...

My wife and I just had a terrible experience in this expensive restaurant. When we arrived we informed that the ONLY restriction my wife had was the uni - and we also mentioned that her favorite was tuna.

The chef started serving me tuna and other options to my wife. I called the “trainee” waitress (yes - it was a trainee sign on her) and asked why my wife was not getting tuna. She told me “yes, we have 3 kind of tuna!” - and here we were waiting for it. When it finished they asked if it was all right and I AGAIN explained my wife was there for the fresh tuna from Japan. Now they seem to understand their mistake and they started a ridiculous discussion between chef and the trainee in front of us.

In a total disrespect demonstration the chef refused to make any tuna sushi to my wife and we just finished without it.

For a ~US$230 per person restaurant and for their clear mistake it’s unacceptable for me. It’s just the michelin star fame. For the terrible service, i don’t...