Sushi Atelier — Restaurant in London

Yesterday I had serious stomach trouble due to your stale food.

Sushi Atelier is a Japanese restaurant I stumbled upon by chance before. It has a great value-for-money, and the flavors are nice. Both my best friend and I love it; we’re regulars, and we’ve always been satisfied with their omakase, which is affordable too. Feeling a craving today, I decided to book a solo lunch there. I saw they had sea urchin listed on the blackboard, so I splurged on a £10 sea urchin sushi. As soon as it was served, I felt a bit dissatisfied—why wasn’t the nori wrapped perfectly around it? But I didn’t fuss about it. I thought I’d finish my 10 pieces of sushi first, then savor the sea urchin.

When I had about four pieces of sushi left, my sea urchin sushi tipped over, so I hurried to pop it into my mouth. As soon as it entered my mouth, I was hit with this indescribable off-flavor combined with a faint fishy taste. I thought maybe it was just a different variety of sea urchin and assumed it was just a bit of that ocean flavor (which I can handle in small amounts). Feeling unsure but not saying anything, I finished my meal and then took the bus to Fortnum & Mason to buy some biscuits. That’s when the nightmare started.

As I was browsing after buying some cookies, a sudden wave of abdominal pain hit. I knew this was serious, so I quickly looked for a restroom. After a round of relief, I thought it was over, but soon after, an even stronger pain hit. It was so intense I couldn’t even stand up properly. I was on the lower ground floor near the butcher section and ended up crouching down on the floor. Struggling up the stairs to the first floor, I barely made it to the G floor before I started feeling dizzy and even a bit nauseous. By the time I got to the restroom, I was so desperate that I didn’t even bother lining the seat with tissue before I sat down.

Thinking that round would finally fix things, I went back downstairs to buy some meat, but the pain came back again. In desperation, I rushed back to the first floor for another bathroom trip. Feeling weak and utterly exhausted, I finally gave in and splurged on a cab home—from the west to the east, costing me £30!

I ended up making three toilet trips!!! Sushi Atelier, how dare you betray me like this! I used to love you so much, and this is how you repay me with this mess? You’re dead to me. UMU too, that Michelin two-star place. Friends, I suggest we all give these Japanese restaurants a capital NO. Can they not serve fresh ingredients to their customers? Do they even have a conscience?...

UPDATED REVIEW WHEN VISITING LATE AUGUST 2017

My god the standards have dropped. The sushi chefs that were there at soft launch were gone.

The sushi that came this time was not pressed hard enough and the sushi fell apart in my chopsticks before I could even pick it up and put it in my plate. This is dire work. The main foodstuffs simply didn't taste anything like a proper Japanese restaurant anymore.

The service from the waitress downstairs was still amazing (it's the same person!), the tea was good, dessert was good. But that's all....they should stop fooling the masses at soft launches to earn good reviews then change the chefs!!!!

ORIGINAL REVIEW AT SOFT LAUNCH - ORIGINALLY FOUR STAR

This place has only been opened for 2 days and understandably have some teething problems. It's quite hard to get booking for a decent hour then when you turned up you realise the place is mostly empty downstairs! I would just walk in.

The food is slightly fusion ... One tuna dish has cheese grated on top but most of the dishes are delicious.

I would avoid the following:

Scallop & asparagus (tiny scallops, not particularly fresh but edible with a strange sauce)

Creme caramel (overcooked egg)

Things to order: Octopus carpaccio (fantastic combination of chili and sweetness from the kizami wasabi and the azuki beans)

Razor clam ceviche

Panna cotta (smooth with a very sweet black sesame sauce on top)

Service is spotty depending on the server. One lady didn't enter our order in the system and we sat there waiting for 30 minutes, after that she decided to give another table's bill to us. Another one tried to take away our unfinished desserts. A third gave me a cup with teabag in it rather than a pot of tea and a cup etc.

Please check your bill carefully. The first bill I received didn't give 50% discount on dessert. The next day on the bill they were trying to charge 100%. The 50% soft launch lasts until 29th July 2017, after which I'm told by my friend that it's 30% off next...

I recently visited this restaurant, and I was extremely disappointed. They were serving sushi rice straight from a steaming rice cooker—way too hot, as was the sashimi on top. This is far from authentic. The miso soup had no real miso flavor, and the seating was packed, making it noisy and uncomfortable. The environment was uncomfortably warm, too. For £40, it’s definitely not worth it. I’m baffled by the good reviews; it seems like people don’t know what authentic sushi should be. Even Wasabi is better. I won’t be coming back to this british style japanese restaurant.

Response:

Thank you for your detailed response, but I have to say it feels like we’re over-complicating some very simple observations here. Let’s start with the steam from the rice: steam only occurs at higher temperatures, so unless we’ve entered an alternate universe where physics doesn’t apply, it’s safe to say that the rice was hotter than 37 degrees. If I can see steam, we’re well beyond body temperature—no need for a science experiment here.

As for the terminology around “sashimi” and “neta,” I must admit, I didn’t realize we were having a vocabulary quiz. I came to enjoy good food, not to dissect semantics. To the average diner, sashimi is just thinly sliced raw fish, and I think we can all agree that “neta” just refers to whatever is on top of sushi rice. Whether we’re calling it sashimi or neta seems a little irrelevant, especially if the taste and experience are supposed to speak for themselves.

Lastly, while £40 per head might seem reasonable in theory, what one expects in terms of quality and attention to detail is what really makes or breaks the value. So perhaps, instead of turning every detail into a lecture, focusing on the overall dining experience might be...