Ami Bistro — Restaurant in Worthing

We chose Ami for my Dad’s 75th Birthday - a booking of 20. We’d communicated weeks in advance regarding the deposits and pre-orders, and my mum called twice to check that the tables would not have anyone sat on the end (as head of table) - once on the day itself - explaining we had a seating plan with everyone opposite one another.

We’d pre-agreed with the restaurant that the party would arrive at 6:30pm for drinks, with food from 7:30pm.

On arrival, we found they’d split up the party into 2 tables! 1 table was so carelessly laid out that you couldn’t get in on one side and barely the other. Despite having just 2 tables for 2 people in the middle of the room, they wouldn’t do what we asked (and expected) and put us on 1 long table for health and safety. Even having the cheek to say ‘there was no prior discussion on either side about the seating plan’ - if you book a table for any size, you do not expect to be separated without being told at the time of booking!

This meant me having to do my best to redo the seating plan rather than being with our guests as they arrived. It also meant 4 sets of people being on the end of the tables rather than 2, and 10 people with backs to each other. More importantly, separating my parents on Dad’s special evening.

Having arrived for 6:30pm for drinks, they didn’t seem at all set up for this. One of the staff commented that ‘they’re not licensed to sell at the bar and are doing us a favour’. Asking us to sit down because of the other (4) guests…there’s a courtyard garden, not even an offer of the use of this. They took a long time to serve the drinks. Why would we arrive an hour before food to just sit at the table? We’d have gone to a bar!

There was no attempt to offer us any compensation, i.e. some free drinks, for the obvious upset. To top it off, they added a service charge to the drinks despite the food also having a 12.5% charge!

The only extra effort they did make was to put a candle in Dad’s dessert - pretty standard.

Despite leaving it a few days since we were there, no-one has been in touch, which says a lot. Whilst the food was reasonable, the service we received was not.

We’d spent Dad’s 70th there and had an entirely different experience. Apparently the ownership has changed.

Were we surprised to see it half full on a Friday night? Sadly not. We won’t be returning again and the experience didn’t impress a number of potential...

Overall the food was excellent but my broccoli was cold and soggy, and I had far too many potatoes with my steak. It felt like the potatoes were a space filler. Everyone else's food was excellent though. There's never really much atmosphere in Amis , which is a shame; given that the food is so good. Our main reason for sorting the service so low is the fact we had to pre-order our food days in advance, yet had to wait an hour and twenty minutes for our mains. Never a big fan of pre-ordering food. It takes away any spontaneity and makes it feel like a Xmas dinner set menu, which I could understand if the Tayside was packed full, or we'd had an exceptionally large party but at the time the 8 of us booked for, there were more empty tables than full ones, and what added insult to our experience was the fact the owner tried to blame us for ordering 2 intros ( a bowl of prawn crackers and a small plate of finger sausages) as to the reason we had to wait so long for our mains. In summary: Really good food overall but not the best dining "...

We decided to book Ami after seeing many photos and good reviews online. Unfortunately our experience didn’t seem to reflect the majority of reviews, perhaps an off night? We had the pork belly and the duck as mains, both were dry, chewy and not done fresh to order, same as the garlic potatoes which we had as a side. I have to say the bao buns were good as a starter and would recommend these! We were really disappointed, the value for money was poor and left us with the feeling that Ami could be ‘food decoration merchants’, I hope that’s not the case and glad to see there’s been a lot of positives since they opened.

The decor felt cheap and atmosphere was weird. Also weird being sat at a table for 4 with just 2 of you, this didn’t feel like a premium experience which is what the prices suggest should be the case.

Lastly, the service was good but not amazing, guy behind the bar was friendly and made good cocktails.

I’d happily welcome comments back from Ami...