Nori — Restaurant in London

Went in with high hopes because I’ve been craving Japanese food. Upon entering, first impressions said a lot when we see unenthusiastic servers. The most striking thing was extremely loud K-pop (the annoying type that would belong in a club) booming through the speakers, could barely speak and be heard, doesn’t suit the mature atmosphere at all. Young team of staff barely communicated and were just in a corner chatting since menu is a QR code and you order online so bare minimum interactions required. They weren’t rude, just wasn’t feeling like there was any service. Wasn’t even asked if we wanted tap water or how the meal was. Would give it one star but didn’t want to be too mean. The tendon set was extremely sweet and was covered in non-traditional teriyaki type glaze and orange-coloured dressing - very weird and overpowered the whole tempura pieces. The plain rice which was supposed to balance out everything was drenched in the sauces so everything was sweet and salty, I had to force myself to finish it. And I was surprised I had potato tempura! 2 pieces! A very cheap filler, should’ve been kabocha or sweet potato. As someone who loves real Japanese tempura and tendon in general, this really disappointed me. Also had a yaki udon and it was sweeter than expected but not terrible in taste. It had a wok hei which smelled good. The only thing I enjoyed was probably pumpkin croquette and again it came covered in mayo which really isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Another thing is food is served rather fast within 10-15 min. Likely wouldn’t patronise again. Don’t go here if you expect real Japanese food, Wagamama might be a better fusion restaurant. Someone said it’s Korean-owned? Seems like it. Better off going to Tomoe in Putney if you...

We tried for the first time Japanese food ( apart from Sushi ). Upon arrival we were l seated in a separate room and the waiter explained us to scan the menu card but if we have problems we should ring the bell. Unfortunately we had some problems with ordering ( Internet was slow & unsure what to eat / drink). You’ll get in other restaurants a disposable menu card. I rang the bell twice and we were completely ignored. After finally be able to place our order online we asked for a table outside. The answer from the waiter if the electronic bell is defect we have been told no but it’s busy.... after more than 30 mins we finally got then seated and my wife’s starter arrived but no trace of mine or the drinks. All came with a delay. The presentation and taste was spot on however I’m not sure if my soft shell crab supposed to be warm... Anyway. Our mains arrived in time and warm. After finishing the meal it’s normal that a waiter comes and ask if you want to have a dessert or the bill and again nothing. I lifted my hand several times to ask for a waiter but were ignored. We went up and walked to the exit to pay. The waiter came and asked if all was ok. I said yes apart from the service which was disappointing. I got as an answer: yes I know the service is very slow...

I have to say that food and ambiance doesn’t make it up for bad service. I have expected much more. Friends of us traveled to Japan last year and outlined the friendliness and how organised everything is... I couldn’t see anything of these attitudes there. Unfortunately I can’t recommend this restaurant despite the tasty food and the...

Had been here several times and this is the lowest score I gave to Nori. Seriously thinking to remove this restaurant from my list. Most of the dishes were flooded with different kinds of sauce. I ordered the Tendon for my son. In Japan, they never put thick sauce on Tendon, so that you can really taste the freshness of the ingredients and to appreciate the cooking skill of the chef. You can see from my pictures that the tempura was covered by hot & spicy mayo and the salty dark sauce (I won’t say it was teriyaki or unagi sauce, because it just didn’t taste right). My son could hardly eat that because no one expect a Tendon was that salty, hot and spicy! My poke bowl was also pre-added with shichimi and not served with wasabi. Very creative to add pecan onto eggplant…. Seems everything was a joke to me. Creativity is fine, while if your positioning is ‘high end’ Japanese food as stated on your website, it is important to make good use of your ingredients, instead of adding different weird sauces to make yourself like the low end chain sushi stores. Or it might be better to have another ‘clean’ option for customers who dislike those non-Japanese cooking elements. Sorry Nori, we were a bit disappointed this time. We really hope that Nori can take customers advice into consideration. We are not the only one in our friend groups having fair to negotiate comments on Nori. What we still appreciate are the good price and...