Jin Kichi — Restaurant in London

My husband and I have visited Jin Kichi together approximately 3-4 times a year over the past 18 years and have always had a wonderful experience there but sadly, not any longer.

What made us choose Jin Kichi, which is a 90 minute journey for us, was not just the exquisite food and sake, but the incredible service and energy in the restaurant.

We've noticed a change since they expanded recently to occupy the premises next door. The food is still wonderful so no complaints there, but their service and restaurant sitting policies are detrimentally letting them down.

We booked a table and were given a 1 hour 30 minute time limit on our sitting. When booking, we requested 1 hour 45 minutes but never received a reply from the restaurant. Sloppy.

We arrived punctually at 7pm and were seated straight away, but weren't approached by a waitress for 20 minutes. We saw them standing around when we sat down but no-one approached.

After that, once we'd ordered, the food came promptly as usual which was fine, but most of the time we had to call a waitress to order other things, and when we wanted to order a couple more skewers and a dessert (to come together) at 7.20pm, we were told no because they needed the table back. So, we really only received an hour of service there.

We asked to speak to the manager who relented and agreed to our last order which we appreciated, despite him not being in any way friendly or conciliatory.

Our bill came to £290 including service and on the way out, we took up our issue with the owner for slow (for Jin Kichi) service. His attitude was very upsetting and deeply disappointing. He said sorry but very disingenuously and when we asked him what he thought and whether he thought this was acceptable, he simply nodded and said "yes that's how we do things here."

Sorry Jin Kichi. Not good enough.

Your restaurant is expensive. If you're going to demand your table back after 90 minutes and charge what you do, then your staff need to be much quicker and attentive to their customers.

This always used to be the case. They used to be highly attentive, pleasant and competent. For the last 3 visits, we've noticed them being slower, not as competent (forgetting orders or confusing what we've asked for when taking our order) and in one case last time, extremely silent and rude!

What we found disturbing and upsetting was that, after so many years of visiting the restaurant and recommending it to our friends, when we had a complaint, we were treated with indifference and zero concern. As though we were annoying customers who'd stepped into the place for the first time. (Although everyone should be treated well regardless of how may times they've been).

We thought we had some kind of a relationship with Jin Kichi, given that we've spent thousands of pounds with them over the years and always shown our deep appreciation of them but, clearly, we don't.

Very very sad about it and clearly we're expendable because they're popular and always booked. (Although annoyingly nobody was actually there waiting to take our table)

Watch out Jin Kichi. The restaurant trade is fierce and reputations can quickly change. Please do better to look after your customers. They will only put up with so much.

We certainly won't...

We were here on 1 Feb 2022, and my regret was that I should have checked the photos in more detail instead of relying on others’ 5 star ratings. The skewers were obviously burnt in most recent photos, and for our dinner here almost all of the skewers ordered were burnt.

Have a closer look at my photos and you’ll see. The tsukune (chicken meatballs) don’t seem burnt, but that’s because the chef had the genius of flipping the burnt side down (obviously knowing that burnt isn’t good), while not giving the usual egg yolk / tare sauce, yet the tsukune wasn’t brushed / dipped enough when it was cooked so the flavour was only superficial and somewhat bland.

The ox tongues were burnt, tough and bitter. The chicken wings, a usually very lenient part of the chicken that stays moist unless you seriously screw it up, was so burnt that the tip of the bones turned to ash (pardon the bones photo). The tips were essentially cremated and turned into ash.

The chicken thigh skewers used a rather non traditional onion instead of leeks, which naturally tasted weird. But “innovation” aside, the meat was again so burnt that it tasted bitter.

As the photo of the grill shows, some of the skewers on there were already burnt, and the chef still kept them there without any care. One main issue I saw is that when there is flame flare up due to oil dripping down, the chef just let the skewers sit IN the flame. That is how these skewers got so burnt that they may well be carcinogenic. The meal was disastrously bad since all but a couple of the skewers we ordered were not burnt. This was probably the first time we chose not to order a second round of skewers at a yakitori, despite having half a bottle of sake left.

The question, then, is that whether this is “traditional”. Definitely not. None of the Japanese skewer restaurants I’ve been to in Japan, Hong Kong or elsewhere serves their skewers bitter. Yes, the environment reminded me of some yakitori shops, especially how crammed everything were, but that alone means nothing.

Most interestingly, if we go back a bit further in the Google map photos, the skewers actually looked more decent a few years ago. It is unfortunate that standards have slipped so significantly.

I seriously hope that this one star review will encourage the owner and chef of Jin Kichi to up their act and serve proper skewers. If you can’t manage grilling for so many diners at the same time, limit capacity. Please don’t scam the “gaijins” who don’t know their yakitori into thinking that burnt skewers are ok. Because I’m sure you know that burnt skewers are never ok, and...

I visited Jin Kichi with my partner on Saturday for lunch. We arrived 30 mins early as we were in the area, but the manager still kindly seated us at the grill bar (which I booked). The restaurant was busyish so the atmosphere was good, the interior of the restaurant gives it quite an authentic Japanese feel.

Upon sitting down we looked through their (extensive) menu and ordered a few beers whilst deciding on what to eat. Our waiter (a young man probably between 18-22) asked repeatedly if we had decided what we wanted to order, I mean like, 3/4 times in 10 minutes, it made us both feel pretty awkward and rushed, to be honest.

Anyway, we ordered some Sushi, Salmon Teriyaki, Chicken Katsu a chicken skewer, and some Padron peppers. The waiter made a weird point about whether it should all come together or separately and we just said well the Sushi first the rest together.

The food came (minus the sushi) which was honestly slightly above average and took half an hour to come, which was ironic as we were super rushed to order. Anyway 15 mins after pretty much finishing what they had brought I asked to cancel the Sushi as it was clearly not coming or being made.

Our waiter was really rude about it quite obnoxious and insolent like 'its coming god' clearly doesn't know how to speak to customers. Whatever life is too short. I asked for the bill, asked for the service charge to be taken off, to which he responded by literally laughed in our faces not asking how he could have done better, and made some smarmy comment under his breath.

He was probs at uni and didn't really care about the job or maybe it was his parent's restaurant and thought sod it I can act how I want. Anyway, it was a shame as we probably would have gone back and I probably wouldn't be writing this review, but you know I hope the manager of Jin Kichi reads this and does something about it. I won't be returning and will definitely not recommend it to anyone in the area. A...