Izakaya Ko — Restaurant in Jacksonville Beach

First time eating here last night, and I'm very impressed! The atmosphere is relaxed and casual, but the sushi is not. Izakaya Ko has quality sushi unlike most places. It's more than a cut above your average sushi place. In fact the only place I would rank higher for nigiri or fish quality in Jax is Norikase, and that place is fancy and even more expensive. Norikase is an amazing place for date night or girls' night; Izakaya Ko is an amazing place for any night.

First, you should know (and the server told us before taking our order) that at izakaya restaurants the food comes out pretty randomly. There's no set order to it. Doesn't bother us at all and is standard for this style of restaurant.

When my husband and I go to good sushi places we like to go all out. So, we tried a lot of things. We ordered... Skewers: pork belly kushiyaki chicken thigh yakitori steak skewer kushiyaki chicken skin yakitori Cold plates: maguro shoyu tataki hamachi crudo hokkaido hotate carpaccio Sushi: Ocean Pearl maki roll Black Dragon maki roll nigiri moriawase Otoro nigiri A5 wagyu nigiri All of it was VERY good. The cold tastings were all EXTREMELY delicious. We couldn't choose a favorite between the scallops and the tuna but the hamachi was also fantastic. The maki rolls were outstanding and the best I've had in Jax by far. (I do wish you could opt not to have the gold flakes on the Ocean Pearl and save like $5, but whatever. It's pretty.) The skewers were a nice option for something non-sushi flavored. My favorite was the pork belly and my husband's was the chicken skin. The flavor on the steak kushiyaki was good, but seemed out of place, probably because of the chimichurri. My husband also thought the wagyu nigiri was not worth it, and he has had a decent amount of wagyu including other nigiri. Legit the only thing we thought was better at Norikase was some of the nigiri, but this was still VERY good nigiri and FAR better than most I've had anywhere. Certainly lightyears above everywhere in Jax except Norikase. (Apologies for continuing to compare Izakaya Ko to Norikase, but as that's really the only other seriously legit sushi place in Jax, and we're big fans of it, it seems fitting to do so.)

This would also be a great place to take people who don't like sushi as well, because they have lots of meat or veggie skewers, fried chicken options, gyu-don which is like a really good beef rice bowl, ramen, etc. We would never take our picky teens to Norikase but we will bring them here next time.

IMO this was worth the drive from the Westside to the beach for dinner. It won't be the last time we go here by any means. I'm honestly still daydreaming about those cold tastings and maki rolls. Soooo good. Highly...

What a huge disappointment. When we arrived for our reservation, the hostess was about to sit another group. We stood there for a little while because after she sat them, she went to the service station for something. We were offered the couches but declined because we wanted dinner, not a lounge. All good.

After sitting for 15 minutes, no staff even bothered to greet us. Even if a place is busy, a simple acknowledgment and “be right with you” is the bare minimum. I finally had to ask the hostess if we had a server. She quickly went to speak to a server. When that server came to the table, she just asked “what would you like?” No introduction, no apology for the wait, no offer to walk us through the menu or ask any questions. Well first of all, water would be lovely. Remember when I said the hostess went to the server station for the group prior? If it was to get them waters, where were ours?

We were waiting 30 minutes before the server came to tell us that the kitchen was backed up and the skewers would take another 25 minutes. We have a toddler with us so an offer to bring anything would have been appreciated. When the yakitori finally arrived, they were all cold. So what was the wait for? For it to sit around until it was served to us? The chicken and steak - cold. Scallops were cold, dry and overcooked. Shrimp were cold and overcooked.

Maybe I looked scary because the server never once asked how the food was or maybe she knew. Would...

I’ve been dying to try this place because Norikase is my favorite restaurant in all of Jax & this looked like it could be a close runner up! Ordered the Tuna Don, chutoro nigiri, otoro nigiri, crab fried rice & garlic ramen. I was a little disappointed to see that the tuna don wasn’t the usual bright red/ pink like we expected but the taste was still pretty good. Crab fried rice I didn’t really care for but my husband thought it was alright. The otoro & chutoro were both amazing, large pieces & super fresh. Ramen however, not very good, would not recommend ordering the ramen at all.

But the one thing we couldn’t look past was the service here, it was awful.. it wasn’t packed, still about 15 empty tables & 4 wait staff walking around but it took at least like 15min to be helped each time. Sat with the check just waiting to be cashed out for another 20min. Our meal took us an hour & 45min.. I’d recommend coming with plenty of...