Bincho Yakitori — Restaurant in Great Britain

Date: 30th August 2024 Cost: £110 + tip for two

I’d wanted to come back to Bincho ever since the very first beautiful mouthful of my first visit. Those juicy, tender, skewered salty morsels had been consuming my every waking thought since, and like the most depraved of addicts I had been concocting increasingly vile and nefarious plans to ensure a return. So it was that I felt no guilt manipulating Dad into coming down here for our latest father-son meal out instead of going up to see him in London, reverse engineering aspects of the visit he’d particularly like in order to paint the suggestion as thoughtful and personal: “you’ll really like it: it’s a grilled meats place and we can go for a nice walk along the seafront to get there; there’s a good selection of Japanese whisky too!”

What I’ve been in knowing self-denial over for years is that in fact Dad and I are very similar in a lot of ways, and so I probably overthought the planning stage - he loved the place almost as much as I did. From repeated mentions of having the best seats in the house (a view through to the grill without sitting directly at the bar) despite an insistence that he’s no longer bothered about where he sits, to praise of the service and a positive commentary on the decor, lighting and “a nice level of busy-ness”, it was almost as though he was trying to tell me - without using the word itself, for fear of bringing up years of historical familial ridicule at his use and pronunciation of it - that Bincho has that what he looks for in a restaurant almost more than decent scran: ambience.

Though I do love the bustle and the low lights against the blackness of every surface, several with specials scrawled into them in chalk; the empty bottles of Yamazaki adorning the perimeter wall shelves; the noises and aromas that emanate from the kitchen and the ridiculous efficiency of the staff, I normally need the food itself to be outstanding to warrant a second visit somewhere. Fortunately at Bincho, it is.

We got a couple of the beer-snacky veggie starters to buy Dad a bit of time with the menu. The Korean cucumbers benefited from a chopping and a tossing - a change from last time - and the pickles disappeared as frustratingly quickly as ever, meaning that Dad let me take the lead when our patient waitress came to clear our plates and ask again if we were ready to order. The great thing about a simple concept done well and to great variety - as the yakitori is here - is that you can just order to taste, in stages, again and again, until you can’t order any more. And so we did.

Chicken skin, chicken meatball (with egg yolk dip), salmon, shrimp and teriyaki miso pork yakitori were all sampled across the evening, the latter two of that chalk-scrawled specials menu. To accompany we had the hipsi cabbage, also from the specials and mercifully still available from last time but ordered just the once this time; a lamb chop (nice, but the yakitori were all better); a kind of creamy broccoli (the only thing approaching disappointing); and an almost stupidly good sea bream tempura, the fish flaky and meaty, the curling batter light and crispy - entirely unnecessary but somehow otherworldly and potentially the highlight. I felt like I could have kept going, personally, but I concede it was probably for the best to forego the Japanese whisky and have that seafront walk, the only issue being the fresh sea air, so devoid of meaty smoke, sobering me up quickly enough that I couldn’t help but start thinking about...

I booked a table for a friend’s birthday two months ago and confirmed my booking ahead of the day. We had been here before and were really looking forward to it. I arrived about 5 minutes early. When I arrived I was seated at the very busy bar squished in among other diners, which I found odd but accepted it was a busy day. The waitress asked if I would like a drink, to which I said I would wait for my friend. She gave me a funny look and walked away. The waitress then came back over and told me quite bluntly I had booked a table for one. I showed her the booking confirmation on my phone that clearly showed it was booked for two. She very rudely said “well our system says one”. I asked how that could be possible, as my booking (booked in May and confirmed the day before) said booked for two. She said “I don’t know, you can stay for an hour or you can go somewhere else”. My booking was for two people, for two hours. Her manner was very rude. The restaurant was packed and it was very clear that they had over booked. There was no apology or acknowledgement of the mistake. My friend arrived on time and I explained the issue. The waitress didn’t even look at me when I said we would eat elsewhere, just walked away without so much as a goodbye, never mind an apology.

I am very disappointed as this was a table I booked two months ago for a birthday.

I’m very sad to leave this review as I have been here before and the food is good, but unfortunately the service was despicable and the way we were treated was very rude. If you would like to try the food here be aware that your booking essentially means nothing and you may be...

I've visited this restaurant for food in the past and was impressed with the quality and flavours. As such, I wished to visit again upon returning to Brighton.

I know from last time that the restaurant is very busy and small, so I attempted to book a table.

On the website, the restaurant advises calling them either in the morning or afternoon for bookings. Over a couple of days, I tried ringing them several times in the morning and afternoon, but no one picked up. Over the next few days, I tried the mornings, afternoons and evenings, but was again unsuccessful.

This was all in the week leading up to my trip. While in Brighton, myself and my partner decided to try and get a table as a walk-in anyway.

When we arrived, we were told that there was over a two-and-a-half hour wait for a table, which is absolutely ridiculous in the busiest of cities.

I understand that the restaurant is small and very popular, but it should therefore be easier to book a table - it's not as if I hadn't tried. If you attempt to book several times over a whole week, then you'd expect to get through at least once.

I feel like small places like this rely on customer loyalty and word of mouth, but I wouldn't recommend this restaurant to anyone after this latest experience, and that's a real shame.

As a small business, you can't focus your offering on the product; the customer service has to reflect the quality you're providing elsewhere, but this restaurant...