Ukai - bar restaurant — Restaurant in London

AVOID AT ALL COSTS! I’m local and have known this building morphing from one thing to another & at the moment in terns of incarnations...It's had a deal of cash splashed but they haven't got a clue about dining and customer service. We were a table of four, mid afternoon, midweek. The place was empty so we kind of assumed the service might be okay...We didn't quite eat what we wanted... because nobody asked if we had everything we wanted! - We were ignored, even though the place was devoid of diners with only a few drinkers at the bar. Our blond waitress was frankly, appalling. Not overtly unpleasant but behaving as though it was really just too too much to serve us. She actually smirked at one point which is pretty gross N'est pas? Coffees took an age to come and we decided to skip ordering wine. This was a special day...After all the Covid separation, we were at last were with our daughter and granddaughter but the mismanagement of this place ruined our experience. The 'manager' was around but seemed more interested in chatting to some locals downing pints at the bar than to our table. I had to seek him out to discuss the appalling service and he motioned to the machine that brought orders into the kitchen, murmuring it wasn't working. He didn't have a response when I asked him why he just ignored us. I then enquired about a dish my daughter had asked for 50 minutes earlier and he seemed blissfully unaware that anything was on order. The order was taken by the waitress not from the machine so he couldn't pass the proverbial buck. C'mon, this isn't what being a manager is about for goodness sake! We waited 50 minutes for some basic sushi dishes. Speaking to the 'manager' I was told there had been a problem with the order machine but if this is so - Why on earth didn’t he come and tell us?! There are no menus, only ghastly QR codes btw so be prepared to stare at your phone. We were the only table eating!! . Apart from us, the place was empty! Our dishes were left on our table for an hour after we’d finished eating; surly waitress did appear but glanced and hurried away... the table was untidy, cluttered and frankly, unacceptable. The thought fleetingly crossed my mind that the only way to get any attention would have been to get up and walk out without paying any of the bill. This is seriously mismanaged. It truly will ruin your evening. They have countless 1* reviews and most centre on the poor management and lack of service. Add to this the fact that I could see guys urinating when I went to the loo?! Gross. Get a screen for goodness sake! Thank you for the freebie’s but this was our family outing & it was ruined by appalling service from a surly girl who quite frankly, should not be allowed to serve the public. I’ve owned restaurants and, take it from me… Customer service is your lifeline; don’t take it for granted that because you’re in portobello and have cool decor and even ok food that your customers will return when they’ve been ignored. You're just the latest in a long long line of eateries that I've seen come and go since the 1970's... carry on this way and you won't last much longer. Sure, your decor is cute but attitude is best suited to a canteen. Thoroughly...

It is with a really heavy heart that I am scoring Ukai an average despite my wife and I enjoying one of the best Japanese food we had in West London.

For a premium restaurant, we felt that at UKAI every single item that we ate were made to a top notch quality and flavour. The ingredients felt fresh. The seasoning was perfectly right. The presentation was great too. Even the portions were just right. Not too much or too less. For the price the food was great.

But the service was really subpar. We entered the restaurant at 8:02pm and we left after 1040pm because of the massive delays they had in bringing each item out. We got the starter item, tempura and pork belly baos , soon enough but we ended up waiting 50 minutes for the staff to bring the next two items that we had ordered. That too after I politely enquired twice.

Then the staff came and told the wagyu tataki that we ordered isn't available and that was irritating to hear 60 minutes into our dining experience. They should have checked this as soon as the order was placed and informed us. The ended up giving our main course the flat iron steak before we had the second starter courses.

In the end to make up for the delays and miscommunication they gave a complimentary ceviche and waived the sushi item that we ordered. That was a fine compromise for us as the food was really good and we just wanted to get home.

Even after all that happened, to even pay the bill we waited for a long time and had to enquire twice. What a weird experience indeed. We have had bad service before but those were also coupled with the food being bad and the place being a unhygienic.

For us this was the first time where the food was excellent and sumptuous yet the service was terrible. I would like to give the restaurant the benefit of the doubt as I felt the staff were genuinely apologetic for the delays. Probably The kitchen and staff were under-resourced and really struggled to manage the orders on a Saturday. I guess the restaurant owners and managers must have a rethink of their operations.

Anyways I might give this place a try maybe couple of years down the lane and hopefully the food quality remains the same and the...

Ukai - Japanese “inspired Resturant” Wasn’t even worth taking photos …

Food rating 2.3/5 Presentation 3/5 Customer service 2/5 Ambiance 2/5 Price 2.4/5 Overall 2/5

A restaurant, I would not go again and not recommend, firstly, a very dark in on little restaurant, I had to pull out my phone torch, so I could see the menu, as a young adult, my eyesight is pretty good, but when the lighting is this bad it usually doesn’t mean good things to come.

With a meh selection of dishes to choose from, I ordered the tempura, prawn and a soft shell crab, both fried very lightly have a temper could have been even fluffier, Ponzu/yuzu soya sauce did not go well as the user overpowered the flavours and was wasted on the tempura , with ordering the sushi, the selection of sashimi and sushi rolls, the sashimi was fresh and clean. However, the sushi rolls does sashimi was ruined by the overcooked rice which was so heavily compacted, reminding me of supermarket, standard sushi, wasted good sashimi on terrible rice, the rice also needed more mirin, the sushi I would say is on level to Wasabi or itsu and that is not what you want to see from a restaurant.

The customer service was horrific , with staff members, not paying attention to other customers, flirting and playing on their phones in front of customers, while we’re there was one individual who was frantically running around, a terrible working environment, where I could observe that they do not work as a team, more so every man for their selves. We came to Ukai because of the 20% dine in deal however, when we receive the check, it was not automatically added, when we told staff about this issue, they snatch the receipt out of hands and didn’t say a word and came back with the receipt and a card machine.

I wouldn’t recommend. Only good thing was the beer selection and the decor of...