Kushi-ya — Restaurant in Nottingham

Don't believe the hype. Against my better judgement I finally tried out this place. The food - was far too salty, in fact that was the overriding 'flavour', and made it difficult to distinguish one dish from the next. The saltiness was so overpowering I couldn't finish some of the dishes because of this. Lots of the dishes came with a dipping sauce, which meant 'double dipping' - never a fan of this - who wants to share a dip when one has taken a bite of food and dips the bitten end back into a sauce, so we're sharing someone else's saliva? Not me. Environment - canteen-like, echoey, clinical, stark. Seating - we were on one of the high-top tables, so stools with no backs - actually quite comfortable, but the table was tiny, and with several dishes out in quick succession, it was cramped, and made it awkward to eat our food. Location of our table - we were up against the side wall with the bar 4 feet away, the space between us and the bar was the only thoroughfare from the entrance through to the main dining area, so we had a regular stream of people walking past us in very close quarters, some stopping to talk to the bar staff, almost brushing our table. It was intrusive and quite unhygienic having people coughing and talking so close to our food. Furthermore, the staff were dispensing the washed cutlery into containers at the bar, so we had incredibly loud distracting clattering of metal cutlery right next to us - very inconsiderate. Service - not one smile between them. Perfunctory and pretentious. Some of the female servers looked as though they'd rather not be there, and one of the male servers was abrupt, dismissive, feigned interest, and got defensive when we said the dishes came out too quickly; the quick succession of the dishes meant that most were cold by the time we got to eating them. Service charge included - I'm all for tipping, at my discretion, so to add a service charge (which is more and more the norm now) onto the bill by default is just cheeky, especially when the service we received was well off the mark. Outdoor space - no effort has been put into this space, just some tables and chairs, no greenery, and people entering and exiting a block of apartments right next to you, the surrounding buildings are tall and oppressive, and it felt like we were sat at a service entrance - some greenery or better screening would have helped. Finally, having read some of the reviews here (after my visit, silly me), I see reference to the food not being authentically Japanese, and the owners replying saying they don't serve authentically Japanese food. Well, that's fair enough, but you probably couldn't have referenced Japanese more on your website if you tried. You clearly call yourselves a Japanese restaurant, so one might be forgiven for thinking you are indeed a Japanese restaurant. It's a...

Way overrated and too big for its boots. Kushi-ya has to do better, especially there’s such competition in Nottingham, even just among Japanese places.

We were seated in the middle of the cramped room so asked to move to one on the edge. Were told no - because others were booked there. We were booked first so don’t understand why we couldn’t have the table we wanted. Not a good way to make guests feel at ease. The table was also wobbly - we had to put a folded up serviette under one corner, like in a Pizza Express.

We had a couple of nice dishes, but nothing that warranted the price. Several dishes were essentially street food (which is fine) but at Michelin-star-wannabe prices. We had the prawn sando, which was a fairly nice, very small prawn cocktail sandwich. The gochujang mentioned on the menu was barely noticeable. Safe, lunchtime food made for Instagram, not for tasting good. For £12.

Similarly the Tira-miso didn’t have coffee in it (again fine, but not explained on the menu) and didn’t really taste that Japanese either - putting miso in something and serving it in a bamboo dish doesn’t make it Japanese. I thought it was nice enough. My wife (tiramisu aficionado) thought it was terrible. But it was huge so ultimately it was a sickly bowl of creamy stuff.

Our cocktails were over sweet and boring. When you have such amazing raw ingredients to choose from they really were bad.

The service was friendly enough and prompt. The decor was uninspired, stark, verging on caricature and cheap looking (the toilets were pretty much unchanged since Alley Cafe days).

But my main concern was the complete lack of any Japanese people, either among the diners or in the kitchen. Barring one Japanese waiter - who, it should be said, did have a good knowledge of the menu when we asked for more details about the pretentiously minimal descriptions.

I’m all for cross pollination and fusion food. But when you’re so clearly marketing yourself as “authentic” modern Japanese cuisine, to see the owners/head chef are either not present or just not of Japanese heritage just smacks of cynical appropriation. Maybe this would sit better if the price tag wasn’t so cynical, or the menu was more honest about its mixture of ingredients. And the threat of being charged if you don’t show up, and the “we will need your table back by…” shenanigans and compulsory service charge. Well it goes on…

Knock 10% off prices, serve tasty dishes not trendy ones, serve dinner at dinner time (small plates can still be dinner), ask diners how they’re finding the food, try to accommodate diners’ reasonable requests (especially when they’ve just arrived), put some stuff up on the walls, and stop trying to appear exclusive. Then you might earn your place in a great spot in a...

Came here for my birthday meal this evening with a friend and was also my first time. The atmosphere was really lovely, the staff were also lovely and the food was amazing, my friend and I had a really lovely time until it came to paying our bill. We decided to not pay the service charge, no reason, we just didn't want to (and we're allowed to not want to) then the waitress at first questioned what we were paying as she thought we weren't paying the right amount and then worked out while in the middle of her thoughts that we removed the service charge. She then left and came back and we were then asked for 'feedback' as to why we didn't want to pay the service charge...there's is no way that this can be asked without it being rude, this question shouldn't have been asked at all. We do not have to explain why we don't want to give our money, like what the hell, who does that? Other than what we owe for the meal, a customers money, a customers finances and choices around that are non of your business. And we left with the staff members huddled around the till obviously being told and talking about that we didn't pay a tip. A tip is optional. We weren't a big table either, just my friend and I. I've never felt so awkward leaving a restaurant, I've never gone to a birthday meal to then feeling icky and shamed for something that was our CHOICE, and that wascarried into the rest of my evening. As good as this place is I'm probably not going to go back and I will be letting my friends know that this was my experience. No one appreciates being questioned about why they dont give you money. If you want to pay a tip then cool, there are times where I do, on this occasion I just decided not too, no biggy, but you don't get to question your customers on why they didn't want to hand you extra cash. If you want feedback then do what Bar Iberico do and provide a feedback card that comes with the bill. If that hadn't have happened this would have been a five star rating, but the lack of etiquette overshadowed the rest of our evening celebrating my birthday. Not cool and I'm glad...