Itto Ramen & Japanese Tapas — Restaurant in Asheville

typical asheville restaurant experience… delicious food and awful service. first, we were glared at and made feel uncomfortable because we had a baby, then they tried to put us right next to the restroom with a newborn. then, the two servers (feather and her braided haired friend with bulging eyes and a blacked out sleeve tattoo, we’ll call her pepe long-stockings) went to every table except ours, all of which were seated after us, to ask if they were ready. that was fine, we understand if they’re busy, but they even said “this isnt going to work“ loudly enough for us to here because our stroller was still open (but completely out of the way) feather came up and asked if we were ready finally, and we told her our order. nothing too crazy, just 4 bowls of ramen and 4 orders of tapas, like the name of the restaurant. shouldn’t be too hard, right? well apparently it was… they brought out multiple wrong items to our table, and when we informed them it was not what we ordered, pepe long-stocking with the blacked out sleeve scoffed and huffed and puffed all the way back to the kitchen, instead of just politely saying “oh, sorry, my mistake” she made it seem like it was our fault that they got our order wrong. then, after a few minutes they got our tapas orders right and then the ramen came out. it was mostly right besides them forgetting my wife’s bowl. feather claimed to have not heard her, but she took her order first and she seemed to have written everything down as it was said to her. it would have probably helped if she recited the order back, like in most restaurants, to ensure that she heard the guest properly. either way, three of the four of us had food, and there was no apology about the fourth not receiving food even when it wasn’t a complicated order in the slightest. so we all waited for her, and allowed our food to grow colder by the second so we could all eat together. about 15 minutes went by and she brought us the last bowl of ramen, with another glare from pepe long-stockings. most of the food was delicious, and we had no complaints about the quality, presentation, and portion sizes. feather and pepe just made us feel incredibly uncomfortable, like it was an inconvenience that we were there, providing their livelihoods. it’s funny because everyone at the table works in the restaurant industry, so we are typically beyond understanding about mistakes and whatnot, as long as the service staff is kind and apologetic. they were NEITHER, going as far as pepe making a face like she just ate a lemon while preparing cocktails for us. not to mention feather walked out of the restaurant for about ten minutes while we were waiting to pay, and then asked another, newer table if they needed anything before scurrying to the back again.. then when the bill came out, they just acted like nothing happened and that we should have to pay for this terrible experience. no apologies or compensations offered, not like we were looking for that, but the quality of the food definitely degraded while we were sitting waiting for my wife’s bowl. so we shelled out the 158 dollars for the awful service. we will definitely try another Itto in the hopes that all the servers are not as terrible, hopefully the one in arden has not been tainted by holier than thou servers with an overwhelming sense of entitlement and no common courtesy or any of the skills required to be a...

So let’s start off by the waitresses hanging at the host stand were sooooo rude and unprofessional. If you’re gonna dine here dine with I think his name was cliff and he was the bartender, he made us feel welcome after the staff basically ridiculed me for just walking in the door. I had called the day before trying to give them a heads up that 12 of us were gonna head there around 7:30 on Saturday. The girl on the phone said “shouldn’t be a problem I’ll let my manager know so they can set something up around that time” so I’m thinking everything is cool. I show up and as soon as I say there’s 12 of us and my name I get laughed at and scoffed at. Then one waitress in particular starts going “omg yeah there’s 12 of them” loud enough for me and my 3 friends to hear making me feel extremely unwelcome. Like girl if you hate your job just say that 😂 so we get told like 20 mins and we should have seating. All the while they’re just talking amongst themselves about me and my group, again I’m standing right here I can hear you bro. So we go outside and the kind bartender says we can sit at the bar and we have a great time with him. He was personal and went above and beyond for us. He was beyond welcoming and didn’t make me feel like a problem at all. However I couldn’t imagine working here with how rude and mean the staff was but apparently they’re always hiring, I wonder why. As a manager none of these girls would have had a job the next day bc their behavior was so gross. These girls need to find different jobs since they hate theirs so much. I won’t be dinning here again, I’ll be going to the one in west, such a shame bc I really...

Like vegan/vegetarian options!

What did I get My friend and I went twice, once for the baos and another time for the ramen. The first time, we got the green tea fried ice cream and the vegan bun baos. I like that the buns had a non meat option. The eggplant and tofu was a good mix to go with the bun. The ice cream was okay. Nothing particularly special. Next time I went, I had the Ramen deluxe, garlic edamame and stuffed shishito peppers. The stuffed pepper were okay... Very cream cheesy...didn't taste any of the pork in it. There were also only 6 of them. The edamame was good. Though the sauce was a little on the salty side for me, but it was good, surprised that it was vegan too. The ramen was decent, I am usually not a ramen person. The noodles are made in-house and it was nice and chewy, not too soft, just right. The broth was rich, and the pork pieces was thick.. more like pork belly and not japanese char siu.

Environment Very nice environment inside. There is bar seating, a couple of tables inside. Great for dinner dates.

Niceness of the staff Staff was very nice. Food came really quick. Not sure if he has a spiel of what are the "good" items but I like his enthusiasm on all the items on the menu, definitely fell for it.

Dollar It was $15 for the Ramen, $8 for the edamame and about $12 for the peppers. Buns was $12 too. Quite a dollar in my opinion.

Yes? Why not. If I am in the area and crave...