Eat Tokyo (Notting Hill Gate) — Restaurant in London

Probably one of the worst dining experiences I’ve had in London.

My table asked to split the bill, and instead of issuing us separate bills like what other restaurants would do, the waitress said she can’t do that and half jokingly said that if we calculated the bill wrong, the last person would have to pay whatever’s remaining.

So we did our math and added up our own bill + gratuity. The lady then started charging our individual cards according to the total we calculated but insisted that she was not able to add decimal points on her POS machine which is completely ridiculous. This meant that for someone who wanted to pay £21.60 was asked to pay £20, and so on.

So naturally when it came down to the last person, the math didn’t add up. And instead of what other restaurants do (making sure the base bill was taken care of excluding gratuity), the lady insisted the last person pays the remaining, INCLUDING the optional 12.5% service charge imposed which amounted to around £5.

At this point, we asked if we could just pay what the last person calculated (their bill + gratuity) since the gratuity part should’ve been flexible. I was shocked to be met with an extremely angry response from the lady, saying that we HAVE to pay the tip or it’ll mess up her bill bc she didn’t want to issue a new receipt.

She then started talking about how if we wanted to pinch pennies and be so stingy, we can just wait there for her to take the “exact cash amount” from “her own wallet” in the back room to refund us, acting like she was super generous and that we were a nuisance.

We settled the remaining bill in the end as the money wasn’t worth creating such a big scene - but being treated so illogically (by disregarding our calculations to key in her own numbers), then being rude when the math didn’t add up, THEN expecting a tip...

Eat Tokyo is usually our go-to restaurant as the food is amazing and affordable. Unfortunately, this time we had an unpleasant experience. One of the waiters got our order wrong (instead of Chicken Teriyaki Bento he ordered Sushi), and as soon as the wrong dish was placed on our table we flagged down another waiter to tell him that we did not order that, but instead order another dish. My friend asked him if the Bento was coming, and the waiter only responded with "Okay", turned his back on her, and did not remove the dish from the table. Again, we flagged down another waiter to tell them about it, however this time he did not let my friend finish what she had to say and left. We assumed that we could have the sushi since no one took it from the table as cases like this happen, and the food is usually on the restaurant. A minute later, another employee came to our table (assuming they were one of the managers), and she asked us what seems to be the problem. We explained everything to her, and she asked us if we have had from the sushi, to which I responded with "yes". She said, quoting "since you ate from the sushi you have to pay for it". This is unacceptable, as we did not order the sushi, it was the waiter's mistake for getting the order wrong, no one took back the dish from the table, and on top of that, again, two of the servers turned their back on my friend while she was speaking them.

This is a great example of bad customer service, which made mine and my friend's dining experience unpleasant and...

Such a shame for the subpar service we received, as we love the food here, but won’t be coming back to this location. The moment we were seated the manager rushed to tell us “you have to be done by 8:30 another table is coming”. Now, I understand having time limits, but perhaps saying it in a less abrasive way unless the king himself was dining at our table. Then the manager chastised us for having 2 seats empty (we booked for 7, they provided 8). Apparently, one is expected to have clairvoyance to know when a member of a large dinner party suddenly cannot show up. At the end, we requested to take off the service charge (which is our legal right), and a server came to harangue us over it. We explained all the above and he extensively argued back with us, letting us know how busy they are and how they needed the seats and was rolling his eyes and being extremely rude to us. Folks, if I had the future-seeing abilities they expected of me, I’d be a billionaire. Regardless, the service charge is known to be optional, and is naturally not given when service was not provided.

How troubling that a restaurant (with eventually many empty seats within our dinner) is so desperate to free ONE seat that they would rush and ostracise a paying group of SIX. Oh and in case you’re wondering, we did order a lot of food, so you would expect a restaurant to enjoy receiving the profits of a large party? But apparently that’s not how Eat Tokyo Notting Hill works. This was perhaps one of the most appalling service I’ve...