Umu

Pricy but elegant with good quality. It was a nice evening out.
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Patrick
8 Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 7
Sunday, September 26, 2010

Ate there in early August - we will not be going back

It wasn't the food which put us off - it would be pretty good value at about half the price. It was the service, which beggared belief.

When we sat down at our table, three different staff members, all of whom were fluent in English, checked with us whether we understood the menu. But when it came to actually taking the order, we were allocated a trainee waiter who spoke no English. His supervisor (one of the three who had been round earlier) watched him struggle from 3 feet away, but did not intervene. It took ages to place the order,and then, needless to say, he got it wrong, in more than one way.

When we complained, the manager offered to refund the discretionary service charge. He didn't seem to grasp the discretionary notion - we were in any event not going to pay that.

Incidentally, a Japanese celebrity appeared while we were eating. A super-senior manager came out and served her personally.

Draw your own conclusions - I certainly have.
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Rusty - View all reviews by this user
1 Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Thursday, August 12, 2010

I absolutely love japanese cuisine. I have eaten at all the best japanese restaurants in London and have been several times to Japan treating myself to the famous kyoto cuisine.

I have to say that Umu is disappointed me for the following reasons:

First of all I have to say the service was really positive and the waiter did everything to make us welcome and very attentive.

I had the kaiseki menu and my partner the sushi kaiseki.

The dishes were well presented however the sequence of how dishes arrived seemed confused. I expected the dishes of my menu to have a beginning a middle and end a crescendo or something. It started interesting but then lost its theme its sense of season flavour... it seemed lost and it felt the chef run out of gas a third into the meal.

The sushi menu was very good however for a kaiseki sushi menu it was boring as well.

The quality of sushi and sashimi was very good but as a kaiseki presentation it should be more then just nigiri and sashimi!

The head chef looked grim working away occasionally barking at a lower ranking chef. I felt that this was quite unpleasant to see. The lower ranking chef was a lady who conveyed much more grace then the so called master who obviously was superior in skill however one can not help notice a certain arrogance oozing from him.

I would recommend a visit to umu at least once to see for yourself.
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Jaqueline - View all reviews by this user
5 Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 5
Wednesday, June 09, 2010