Kusaki — Restaurant in England

I came for my birthday and fully expecting the food to be as amazing as the photos I seen in the earlier reviews. However I left the place feeling quite hangry!! ( hungry + angry )

This meal was so underwhelming and unfair, I felt like my money was robbed.

Pros: Beautiful interior, great place for special occasions. Very nice and attentive service, didn't have to wait long for food. The salad sauces were flavoursome, went well with the salad very tasty. Great quality dessert, tasted amazing.

Cons: On my arrival I was informed the menu has just been changed when I asked for a certain dish in photo.

First I was served a matcha mocktail in a Coffee Mug! Shocking! The taste was so bland as well.

I was very shocked again when the £40 sushi platter came. It's a massive let down, for the price you charge, you shouldn't even allow this quality of food to be served or even be on the menu. The rice was hard and barely sticky. It was worse than the rice in other cheaper sushi places I have tried in town. No ginger or wasabi was given on the side.

The sushi ingredients were too cheap and simple. One piece of radish pickle on top of rice and you call that sashimi? Also repeat using that same pickle and cauliflowers in your tofu pockets and salad? Where were your tofu omelette and vegan caviar you used to have? For such price you could at least give like vegan salmon sashimi which is already available in the UK, even I have bought it myself.

The sushi rolls literally consists of just 3 pieces of cucumbers and carrots inside. Honestly this is like the sushi I can get in supermarket. Also let's not forget the very plain rice balls.

The whole platter was plain and bland. I didn't feel passion or sincerity in your food.

The dessert was very yummy but where were your flowers and berries? This is fine dining, look is as important as taste.

I'm giving you four stars because I support your ideal and hope your vegan business can go on but definitely with massive improvements!

As a long time vegan, I was so excited knowing there's finally a vegan sushi restaurant in town. I am willing to spend a lot on a meal Only If both the food and experience are exceptional and worth it. I'm fine with small portions but not poor quality!

I'm willing to come again on condition that you change to a better menu with food that actually justify your price. Only then I would bring my omni friends and be able to show them vegan food...

I'm very torn about how to review. The restaurant is one of the most beautiful I've seen and the staff are lovely and accommodating. The drinks tasted great and the cutlery and dinnerware was very interesting. I really enjoyed the atmosphere.

Unfortunately the food was not on the same level at all. Our rice cakes we started with were mostly the crumbs you get at the bottom of a packet when it gets crushed up which I should have realised was a red flag. None of the main dishes were seasoned whatsoever, not even the rice for the sushi seemed to have anything added to it. To make up for the lack of seasoning, every dish we ordered had the same spicy sauce, meaning every single thing we ordered tasted exactly the same. The only thing without that sauce (which was too spicy for me, to top it off) was the wakame salad, which was literally just seaweed in a bowl with nothing on it. No sesame, no soy sauce, no other vegetables. Just seaweed. For one dish the chef sent out a different thing to what was described on the menu because he said "the thing on the menu tastes bad" which was very confusing?? I've never experienced that before.

I really wanted to like this place, I really did. I brought my partner here for a special treat since we don't have much money to spend on eating at restaurants. But considering the price I literally cried into my napkin because I was so disappointed to pay so much for...

Pros: really lovely atmosphere (the decor is beautiful, authentic and calming. Kusaki do really good small plates (the gyoza and aubergine are particularly good). They also have absolutely incredible cocktails. Cons: the tantanmen should really be renamed, tantanmen is traditionally a spicy, nutty, creamy broth with thin noodles. What they serve here (pictured) is a really herbal thin broth with shop-bought udon, edamame, tofu and mushrooms. It’s more akin to vegan kitsune udon I’ve had in Osaka but more medicinal tasting. I’ve had more herbal, medicinal broths in Taiwan but i would expect more high quality ingredients if they’re going for this angle, not just tofu, udon and mushrooms. The curry was also not amazing… for what you are paying here I would expect a richer flavour. Lastly, maybe she was having a bad night but the waitress we had was really weird (she asked how our meal is but walked away midway through me answering haha) she was also a little aggressive when we checked if we had the right noodles (we were understandably a little confused by the tantanmen when it arrived).

All in all, I would recommend coming here for the small plates and the drinks but the mains could be better and the service could be friendlier. That noodle dish definitely would benefit from a name change! For what you’re paying at Kusaki I would expect...