Sticks'n'Sushi Soho — Restaurant in London

STAY AWAY IF YOU HAVE ALLERGIES AND VALUE YOUR LIFE

I WILL BE REPORTING YOU TO THE FSA AND LOCAL AUTHORITY’S FOOD AND SAFETY TEAM!

I had a reservation at 6:15PM on 24 February 2024 at your Soho location.

I explained in front of a witness that I have a severe allergic reaction to ALL shellfish and can get anaphylactic shock and die from digesting it. When I was given a menu, it had a picture of a vertically laid out nigiri platter without corresponding description next to the items; the description was set out below with a long list of items, making it difficult to cross-reference it to the image above. I pointed at what I had thought was white fish. The waiter who knew of my shellfish allergy did not say a word about it being a scallop. I digested the scallop upon delivery and immediately could tell it didn’t taste like fish because I had eaten it once in the past and it caused an allergic reaction.

I asked the waiter whether it was fish and he said it was a scallop. I told him I am allergic and should have never eaten this. He said it is fish, to which I replied that it was in a shell and hence shellfish and I should have never been given this. He did not care; neither did he apologize.

I then spoke to the manager who also knew of my shellfish allergy. He later said his name was Richard (I don’t think that is his real name as he muttered it quietly and quickly when I asked him for his name). The manager never apologized and lied to me in front of a witness that a waiter had queried whether scallops were ok and that I replied that they were. The waiter thought it was a fish and was surprised to learn it was a shellfish to begin with. Since my first allergic reaction, I have never eaten scallops again. I have witnesses, including doctors, who would testify to this effect. My witness confirmed that the waiter’s statement was untrue and that a waiter had never alerted me to the fact that it was shellfish. Thankfully, it only caused a mild allergic reaction with an upset stomach. However, I could have died and I hope your restaurant will realise the severity of this conduct after reading my review.

I couldn’t eat any longer and left half of my order untouched because I knew I may be vomiting. The manager asked where we were going after this, and I replied that we were going to the concert. Then he asked whether I wanted to take the rest of the order with us (that’s exactly what you take to a concert!). I said that we couldn’t as we were going to a concert.

I was then given a bill where the manager had the audacity to include the shellfish to which I was allergic. After an unpleasant discussion filled with lies about me asking for scallops, he agreed to remove a service charge (it should not have been included for that awful service in the first place) and the £7 shellfish. He made me pay for the items I could no longer eat as a result of their negligence.

The manager also did not seem to believe me that I had such allergies and I even showed him images of what happens to me following an allergic reaction. He was uncaring, indifferent, and extremely unprofessional. I have never been treated worse by a restaurant whose staff was negligent.

Also, they charged us for...

While the food was really good the service was disappointing, rude and not attentive. They were able to seat us early which was nice, but equally I would have rather waited if it meant the experience would have been better. No one asked if we needed a drink so after a while we flagged someone down to order. Then another 20 + minutes passed until someone asked if we wanted to order food. They always seemed rushed and like we weren’t their Table to deal with. Anything else from that point we needed to flag someone down for despite so many staff rushing around. After we ordered, part of the meal came. We asked on 3 separate occasions where our ceviche dish was. Finally after we had already finished eating a different staff member came over and rudely said “I already gave you that dish, I put it on your table first” and when we said we didn’t receive it she then argued back that she was sure she gave it to us and that “she was happy to order us a second portion though” which was condescending. She would not believe us saying we hadn’t received it. I then said I took a picture of the meal when it arrived and showed it to her and explained that I had seen her looking at our table but she didn’t set anything down and instead went to another table. The dish comes in a shell, I’m sure we would have remembered eating it if she had put it on our table. She then seemed to remember and walked off to get us a ceviche. When she came back to give it to us she apologised for the order being missed but not for how rude she was. We were shocked to be treated like that as a customer and it changed the entire vibe of the meal and put such a bad taste in our mouths. Worse is that we were then charged for the ceviche, which good customer service would have realised the restaurants fault and taken it off. Overall really disappointing because we had been looking forward to trying it. But won’t be coming back or recommending to friends...

I had the most awful experience at sticks and sushi. Our table was neglected by the wait staff it wasn’t until after an hour of waiting with the menus in front of us that I managed to flag down a waiter who reluctantly took our order who said it wasn’t there allocated tables.

We waited another 55 minutes for food to arrive. Only half the table got some of their food. It wasn’t for another 20 minutes - 2 hours 15 minutes after sitting down that some of the party eventually started eating. Throughout this whole ordeal no one came and topped up our waters or asked if we wanted drinks. The waiter - who I later found out was serving our area - had made multiple visits over to the table without interacting with us or checking in with us.

We sat with our finished plates in front of us for 35 minutes. We had to go up to the bar and ask someone to clean and remove the plates. It was a friend’s birthday and we decided to order a couple of desserts to share between the table as they have a huge sweet tooth. These somehow took 20 minutes to come even though they were all cold desserts.

When complaining to the manager about the appalling service she comped the three desserts off the bill - not even totalling 10% of the bill.

We are all regulars of sticks and sushi in London but across the world often taking clients for meetings there but we won’t be returning as we had one of the worst experiences at a restaurant ever and there was no real remorse or apology from the manager or staff who neglected us. Spending 4 hours in sticks and sushi was not something we wanted to do that evening.

I won’t be going...