Kissaki Sushi — Restaurant in Town of Southampton

I am usually never one to leave reviews but I have to make an exception to vent.

Heard good things about Kissaki from the NYC locations so was excited to go here for dinner to celebrate my 30th birthday in the Hamptons and made a reservation for a party of 14. We showed up right on time with high hopes but the dining experience went all downhill from there. Clearly this place was short staffed with only one cook in the kitchen along with four waiters that were struggling to serve tables when the place was only less than 30% at capacity. I tried to empathize if there was a valid circumstance because it is off-season time but there was no excuse for this disorganized and unprepared service when we made the reservation two months in advance.

It took forever to place our orders foreshadowing the almost four long hours of our dinner from start to finish. I’ve never waited this long at a restaurant establishment ever let alone during a less than busy time. Nearly an hour in of waiting, waiters asked only a few of us who ordered the set course dinner if the cooked entree dish can served before the nigiri appetizer because “everyone else in the restaurant got sushi too so the cook was over capacity”. Not to mention the overpriced food was mediocre at best when it finally came out. The uni pasta tasted like straight butter doused in oil with no traces of uni. The sushi fish was subpar quality. Could tell the caviar on top of the nigiri was very fishy. One person in our party found hair on her fish. A few others noticed scales still on their fish pieces and a couple of us found long bones in the cod. We even waited almost another additional hour just for dessert. I am no professional chef by any means but I literally could’ve gone into the kitchen myself and used some elbow grease to help scoop freezer burned ice cream. And when it got time for the check, the bill was initially only comped for the six diet cokes we ordered along with the edamame and shishito peppers appetizers for the table which was served on the house to begin with due to the delayed wait. This dinner and the absurd service at this place was underwhelming. Do yourself a favor and do not come here at all. Would not recommend to my...

In short: Food was amazing!

Our server, Gerardo, however, could use more training.

Going into more detail:

We were on the fence between whether or not we should go that day so we made a last minute reservation and weren’t able to sit at the sushi bar.

The dining room was nicely set up and we were greeted with a friendly host/manager.

I ordered oysters to start, followed by the uni sundae and a la carte pieces of chuu-toro. I was skeptical since the prices were marked a decent amount higher than other well-known sushi spots but the toro was surprisingly topped with caviar. I conceded; the order was well worth the price. They had just changed the dessert menu at the time but I could’ve done without it.

I was satisfied with everything aside from the service. To start, we ordered a bottle of hot sake. Gerardo brought 2 wine glasses and proceeded to pour. Eventually realizing his mistake, he took out sake cups and poured the sake from the wine glass into the cups in front of us. That would be a no-no at a fine dining establishment. He was absent most of our meal and checked on us maybe once. I would’ve been more lenient if he had other tables but it wasn’t even busy since it was a rainy weekday. We got more face time with the manager, who also took our dessert order.

And smaller things that I noted given the price point of the menu: we were provided with some chipped plate- and tea-ware to use. Not a big deal in terms of usability but definitely a negative for presentation and it takes away from the experience as a whole.

I was really looking forward to trying Kissaki since it was on my radar for a while. Perhaps another location will provide a better...

I don’t usually write a bad review but my experience was so terrible that I feel this restaurant deserve an honest review.

Despite a reservation, we had to sit outside because of 2 large parties indoor. Fine but when we went in to use the bathroom, there were many seatings available. But then the bathroom was gross. Asked the server to turn on the heater repeatedly, they didn’t turn it on until 2 hours later. It was cold and windy outside. How windy? The wind knocked the tablecloth and spilled my soy sauce on the table. That’s how windy it was. What kind of sushi restaurant play clubbing music? It was loud and do not match the cuisine. This is the part that made me write this review: we were hungry, sitting in the cold, and spent 2.5 hours there but still not getting all of our orders (came at 7:10pm and left at 9:30pm hangry). Our food that came very slowly and not in order nor explained by the server. The sushi was made very sloppily and the food was not good. We had to cancel the rest of our order and asked for the bill after 2.5 hours. Despite this the bill was $250 for 2 ppl. The restaurant didn’t offer any complimentary drinks while waiting and just said we’ll check with the kitchen. By 9:30pm, we weren’t the only tables cancelling order, asking where the food is, and asking for the bill. There were 2 other parties next to us doing that. Manager was nowhere to be seen to explain to the guests what’s going on.

Needless to say, we ended up ordering pizza somewhere else.

This restaurant is so poorly managed that I was angry for paying $250 on such a bad experience and wasted 2.5 hours being...