Lonely Mouth — Restaurant in Bristol

Atmosphere was noisy and uncomfortable. Service was... so-so, a little slow. Food was awful. Why are they putting salt in the miso soup? They might defend and say they did not. I have had miso soup for over 30 years and have made it for over 20 years, and it's very easy to tell the saltiness difference between miso and salt. Miso's 'saltiness' is a distinctive savoury-umami smell, which also has a sweetness undertaste, so I wouldn't even call it 'saltiness'. That miso soup was like sea water, maybe even saltier than sea water. I just could not have the second scoop of it. It's either salt or soy sauce (which is also salt) that they put into the soup. I am not sure how the owner does the soup, but the cook in the restaurant might not have followed the original recipe from the owner (if the owner's recipe is appropriate).

They also put furikake on everything of the lunch set. It looked like furikake, but it is not. It's some powdery chilli flakes and black sesame, and something else (maybe some 7-spice powder...?). Again it's very salty and overpowering. It completely obscured the original tastes of the side dishes and the main dish (I had tofu)... It's not (the point of) furikake. I am not sure why it's there. Garnish? Miss the point!

The rice was too moist. And the cook squeezed it hard so the rice was not fluffy at all.

Tofu was 'interesting'. It actually tasted like Shanghainese 'smelly bean curd', especially they coated the fried (very very dry and hard dried tofu) using something like doubanjiang.

I understand they are trying to re-produce the kind of ichiju sansai here in Bristol, using their own method, local 'wisdom', and local produces. But reproduction and mimicking are different. You can certainly use your local 'wisdom' and local ingredients to re-present or make Japanese style British cuisine that is loyal to the Japanese spirit. But what I experienced (food wise) here at Lonely Mouth was copy-and-paste without studying carefully the core of the 'Japanese style'/'Japanese' food.

Does it promote/posit itself as a Japanese food restaurant? Food of Japanese style? Japanese-inspired food maybe. But it's definitely faking it. I don’t think they understand Japanese food.

Yes it is all exotic, heap and cool to experience Japanese food or Japanese style things among the Brits (at least the Brits). But I don't think the Brits deserve to be fooled like this... This is obviously treating them like dupes. It's not inexpensive to dine at Lonely Mouth either.

I was so angry during the whole experience. I have never had been so angry on eating something. I was so gutted eating there, wasting money and time. Most importantly, I think they are wasting the food, not respecting food.

Until they can improve by a large extent, I do...

EDIT: As you will see, the response from the owner below is extremely inflammatory and defensive, which was exactly her approach when we politely said we should have been told that there would have been a wait on food. If they would have explained when we arrived that the food would take an hour and a half because there's 'a problem with the rice cooker' (which nobody was aware of), we would have gone elsewhere'. I'm not sure that's an unreasonable request, but clearly this place can't handle any kind of constructive feedback, as you will tell from the other negative reviews. And making me out to be a demanding customer is just a complete misrepresentation. I certainly wasn't expecting anybody to be responsible for what is described by the owner as 'my 'illness' (type 1 diabetes). But I do expect when I've paid nearly £40 for a meal that we would be advised we would be waiting an hour and a half, rather than gaslighting the customer into saying that they should have known this. Oh and I'm not sure why she feels the need to mention us asking to move tables. Which incidentally was once. We asked to move once to a different table, which was less cramped than the first one, which they completely agreed with. It was empty. And caused them no issue as they didn't even wipe it. Not sure why this would have been a problem but...hey ho. And yes, the 'free' drinks were the only good thing about us completely wasting our afternoon. If you want to be treated with any kind of respect, small business or not, please go elsewhere.

Looks like my mouth will have to remain lonely forever after a shoddy experience at this place.

It was extremely chaotic and grubby. We waited over an hour for our food order, having asked after 45 minutes how long it would be, they just kept casually saying '5 minutes'. When over an hour had passed, they said that it would still be another 15 minutes. This was after being prompted again and not information that was readily provided to us. I had already had insulin for my diabetes so it would have been dangerous to wait any longer, so we had to just ask for a refund.

We were also told that we 'should have known' it would take this long as it was busy. Ummm...if we hadn't been told this information, how would we know? Informing your customers that there was a wait on food would have allowed us to make an informed choice, but we never had that information & she just kept arguing with us about how it was not unreasonable to wait for over an hour for food. I'm all for small businesses and I never leave bad reviews unless it's truly warranted, but there are so many good small businesses in Bristol, I would genuinely take your lonely...

Feel really disappointed by the whole experience. We went in on a Sunday and they were clearly really busy which we expected. The food looked great when it was coming out and we were excited to try it out. We sat down and I then ordered for my wife and I and we got our drinks fairly promptly. After 45 mins I checked with one of the waiting staff to see if our food was coming and were told it would be out in five minutes. Another ten mins passed so we had in total waited one hour. We then asked another member of staff who I presume was the owner/manager who said it would be another fifteen mins so at this point we asked for a refund.

The owner/manager asked if there was a queue when we ordered (which there was for people to sit down, not to order) and then said it's fairly standard to wait an hour for food and that they had had a problem with the rice cooker or something... I understand that everything is made fresh but regardless of whether someone thinks that's standard, I'd at least expect the staff to keep paying customers informed at point of service and during the wait itself.

We love to support local businesses but the attitude of the staff here was pretty dreadful. It seemed that we were the problem.No apology at any point and just a really dismissive and patronising attitude. At one point we were told that they had been working on hospitality for a long time and an hour's wait is perfectly normal. On principle I just wouldn't go again regardless of how good the...