Zaya 1943 Korean Steakhouse — Restaurant in Chattanooga

Edit: Zaya reached out to me and made this situation right. They had us back out for a complementary experience. McKinley called us personally and pushed to make sure we were able to come back and have a better night. We came on 3/14 and had an amazing night with some amazing food, service, and atmosphere. We were seated shortly after arriving, got food quickly, and had great conversation with our service staff. This was the Zaya that we know and love! I still stand by that a busy night may not be the best night to come here, but that's everywhere. Any other night, come to the restaurant for an amazing time. Ask for McKinley! She's just phenomenal and takes such good care of us!

I have reviewed this restaurant before and would have given it 5 stars. We come here often to celebrate. McKinley is always our server and she is wonderful and our experience is always great.

However, we made a reservation for valentine's day and had the worst experience with the most expensive meal of our lives. Our reservation was for 7. We got a phone call asking us if we would be willing to push the reservation back to 7:30. We said that was fine but emphasized we wanted McKinley as our server. We were assured we would still have her.

We got there and didn't get a table until 8. We were sad to see we were not seated with McKinley. We were shocked to see that there was a preset menu for the night that had a lot of seafood. I have an intense seafood allergy that was noted on the reservation. They should have mentioned the menu when they called. The manager came over and assured us that they would give us extra of other things and that was fine.

Fast forward, it's 8:30. We haven't gotten anything but water. After moving our reservation back for them, it's not an hour and half after when we wanted to eat and have no food. Food come at 8:40ish. They forgot our soup and our appetizer, we have to ask. I also had asked for a fork since I can't use chop sticks. Still no fork. Our server keeps dropping things at the table and running off before we can ask for the things we are missing.

We were very polite and understanding the whole time. Never getting agitated because it's Valentine's Day and we normally don't have this type of experience here.

Then it came time to cook. Our server made things so awkward. He kept trying to engage him in conversation, but he had no interest in engaging with us. He was very stressed out, understandably. Normally, they cook one meat at a time and tell you about it and then let you enjoy that one before they cook another. He cooked everything back to back to back. We couldn't enjoy the meal because things got cold before we could get to them. It felt like he was rushing us.

This was an extremely expense experience. We when in expecting to pay about $200 but spent double that plus for the worst experience at fine dining we have ever had. We were hoping the manager would come back and check on us knowing we were a little upset at the beginning, but he never came back. We didn't see him again to try and talk about our experience.

I can highly recommend this restaurant on a normal night. DO NOT GO HERE ON VALENTINE'S DAY!

I wish there was an email for the restaurant owner that I could send this...

**UPDATE: it has been almost three weeks since I’ve emailed the Zaya GM as requested after leaving my review. I did not get a response, so I emailed a second time and have still not heard anything. This leads me to believe the GM only responds to negative reviews to make it appear as though they care. To those reading the reviews, don’t be fooled.

I don’t normally leave reviews, but I felt my experience needed to be shared. My husband and I went to Zaya for my birthday, and we got the wagyu feast (a $290 meal) as well as a few cocktails. To start, we were seated in the downstairs dining section closer to the kitchen. Our seats were fine, but I found it very distracting and uncomfortable that at least two servers would stand by the kitchen doors talking and watching everyone eat the entire night. I know they want to be attentive, but there wasn’t hardly anyone in the restaurant, and it was weird having all these younger girls hovering near us talking the whole time. On top of that, they started clearing our table really early! I wasn’t even finished eating before half of the side dishes were gone. And they continued to come by and clear things multiple times which felt like we were being rushed when we had only been there a little over an hour. I just wanted to enjoy our food and converse but instead felt hurried to leave. The main thing that bothered me about the experience was when I went to the bathroom in between our steaks being grilled and our waitress grilled the second section without me even at the table. I was only gone a few minutes but when I got back she has already finished, so not only did I miss out on the experience portion but I also didn’t get to try the wagyu fresh off the grill. Overall the food and drink quality were okay, nothing special to be honest, but the dining experience really let me down. For an almost $400 dinner, it was a major disappointment. One thing I would like to add was that our server was busy when they brought out the wagyu spread, so another server stepped in to grill the first section for us and he was wonderful. You could tell he was very professional and an experienced griller. We wished he had taken care of us the entire night. Unfortunately I did not get his name, but I believe he may have been Korean as we talked a lot about traditional...

I’ve been here a few times and this time I had plans to take my fiancé from out of state here as we visited from CO for our anniversary. Was super excited as the first time was great, second time was decent but this last was just that, the last. The service we paid for did not match the quality. We were seated quickly but it took a moment for our server to come over, he didn’t explain the menu well but we figured it out. We ordered rice and asked for a soup we did not see till we were paying to leave. First this poor server asked for our rice and soup to be delivered multiple times while he cooked for us and two other tables. Once we received our rice it was soggy and just like glue. But that wasn’t the true problem. The issue was the completely raw food despite requesting med. my fiancé is total okay with bleeding meat but this wasn’t that. Our server wasn’t cooking the meats longer than like a second despite the request. We both got sick with food poisoning, ending with sweats, irritated stomachs, and throwing up which is completely abnormal for both of us. I felt so bad hyping this place up to my fiancé for us to spend our anniversary there and it not be good and end up with her being sick and us not getting the experience I had the first time when this place had just opened. The one meat that made it was the zaya steak. Only thing we got to eat out of our Butchers Feast

11/14/24 update.

They definitely earned my updated review. First they reached out so fast to ask me about this visit. Shawn was amazing and truly took care of us. The server David was amazing as well. Asked the right questions and was on top of our care. Even Lilly who brought the meats made sure we were well taken care of. Second This time was exactly what I was raving about to my now fiancé that made me so excited to take her. This was an excellent make up and amazing way to spend our engagement. Left super full and satisfied. Will be back with my in laws next time. From CO to TN that was well worth it and will be back. Wine and the Rose cocktail were top tier for price, quality, and taste. Thank you staff for making this an excellent...