Nippon Izakaya — Restaurant in London

Very Good Sashimi, and other Japanese food, reasonable prices, service a little bit disappointing

Although our hotel was near Tower Hill and it took us almost an hour to get to this Japanese restaurant in North Finchley, it was worth it in matters of quality of food. We were one of the first customers at 7 p.m. so we could choose our table. Tables are small and close to each other. Lucky that we as a couple got a table for four.

As my girlfriend wanted to eat something warm but I wanted to eat Sashimi, we ended up ordering quite a mixture: Chanpon Ramen, Okonomiyaki, Ika Natto and the chef selection of 7 kind of Sashimi. The first dishes arrived extremely fast at our table after having ordered: started with an Amuse-bouche, followed by Sashimi, Okonomiyaki, Ika Natto and finally Chanpon. Unfortunately that was not our intention: We wanted to start with Okonomiyaki and Ika Natto and after that Chanpon for my girlfriend and Sashimi for me. Maybe we should have made that clear when we had ordered.

As mentioned at the beginning, we were one of the first customers and the whole staff was only focused on us. This felt awkward as the waiters were filling up our glasses of beer all the time and as soon as the bottle was empty, asked if we wanted to order more beer (of course we wanted to wait until our glass was empty as we don’t want the beer to get warm). We also felt awkward as the staff was watching us eating as they had nothing else to do at that time. From our experience, Japanese usually tend to be more considerate. And that’s the point…the staff is not Japanese. Although they are greeting customers with this Japanese "Irasshaimase!" greeting, they were speaking Cantonese to each other so that means that they are either from the south of China or Hong Kong.

During our entire stay at the restaurant which was 1,5 hours, the music (Japanese) was already repeating in a loop. More variety would be nice.

Conclusion: although each dish was very good (quality of Sashimi, Chanpon not too salty as we had it already in other restaurants), the service and the atmosphere were a little bit...

I’ve been to this place before and it was delightful but after the new change of staff (I’m assuming new owner), my treatment has been awful. (Mainly the short guy with slick back hair) We was greeted friendly as we came in, until I mentioned I booked the groupon, then the guy facial expression and mood changed towards us. He had a grumpy and moody toward us and placed us on a small table which obviously wouldn’t fit the 60 piece platter. I asked for a bigger table as I knew it wasn’t going to fit all the food, he said it’s “fully booked” bare in mind the restaurant only had one table of customers... The food came out and we had no space to eat, but thankfully his colleague had some sense and pushed the table together for us so we could have room to eat. Food was great, fresh and we didn’t have to wait long. We even spent an additional £40 on top of the groupon. At the end of the meal, I asked for the bill. Due to the experience I had with him I wasn’t happy and requested for the service charge to be removed, but I told the lady (who smartly joined the table for us) I’ll gladly tip her for her service. The lady went and spoke to the rude guy (I’m going to assume he’s the manager) and she told me that he said I’d need to pay this fee, I had a long day (just wanted to go home to my bed) and couldn’t be asked to go on with this restaurant so I payed it but as I mentioned I’ve been here before and had a loyalty card. I asked the rude guy can you stamp my loyalty card, but rudely he responded no you get no stamp because you have groupon. I said yes that’s fine I understand, but I said I spent an additional £40 (which is 4 stamps), then he responded even more rudely, no you get no stamp because groupon is on the same bill and your service and walked off. Firstly why offer a groupon deal if you’re not going to happily provide a good service for it. It’s such a shame that a nice restaurant is such a let down by...

The short guy with the slick hair is rude and hostile!!! I just came out of this restaurant feeling upset and angry because as soon as I walked in I felt the attitude by the way they were asking myself and other people to sanitise our hands and take temperature and personal details which I am very happy to do but it’s the way it was done very rudely, then I ask the waiter to help me with identifying what some of the dishes were on the menu, he reluctantly done it then i decided on salmon teriyaki and as a side some fried chicken (karaage) when the food came I couldn’t tell if it was salmon or not as it was battered and very spicy, I thought something was wrong but continued to try it as I didn’t want to seem like I’m complaining, so then I opened one of the pieces and it was chicken not salmon, I called one of the waitresses over and told her, and also mentioned that I didn’t want to change it don’t worry but I’m just letting u know u have made a mistake with my order, she started to laugh rudely and said why u telling me now that you’ve eaten half of the dish 🤦🏻‍♂️ Then the other waiter came and just gave me attitude the made me feel very uncomfortable, I will definitely not be going back, I’ll go...