Sushi Saito. Absolute disaster

This is one of the most popular high end sushi restaurants in Tokyo and I cannot for the life of me understand why.

The Ikura and Katsuo were pretty good. 9.5/10. The rest were 7/10 at best. Nothing was the best in its category.

What really made this experience absolute trash was the chef and the other customers.

For those who don’t know, there are 2 rounds. 18:00 and 20:30. You wait outside of the door and they call your name and seat you. The problem is that the moment they started calling names, the 3 other groups literally ran into the door cutting the queue as if they weren’t going to call everybody. Alright, not that bad yet, but troubling signs for the meal to come.

For the sake of simplicity, there were 5 groups. We’ll call them group A, B, C, us, and D.

So group A were big regulars. I think it was their third night in a row and they brought a bottle of Dom and bought 3 other bottles of white. The moment they sit down, they pour half a glass of Dom for themselves and for the chef and had him down the half glass. Immediately followed by 3 more glasses. They kept on going and the chef downed 5-6 glasses in a row before even starting.

Group C were a group of 65+ year old predators (also regulars) openly talking about buying young and potentially underaged Thai girls and offering on bringing the chef to a “girl’s bar” where they will “prepare” a lady. The chef was badmouthing his own girlfriend while Saito san came out and told the chef to go with the customers to the “girl’s bar”.

Group B joined in and made the chef down a red as well.

Chef (the apprentice to Saito san) was dropping rice and knocking over tools the entire night. He even dropped an entire sushi on the floor. He also messed up a fish, audibly went oops, then went ahead and served the fish anyway. He was also overtly playing favourites giving bigger (2x) portions to groups A, B, and C. He would forget what he served and mix up what he was serving.

At the end, Group A bought a round of Nihonshu (sake) for the entire restaurant, then mixed it into a wine glass with a different bottle of white and made the assistant drink it, who immediately ran into the back to vomit after drinking it.

Am I crazy for thinking that this is absolutely unacceptable? We’re paying 48,000¥ per person for this meal that feels like “ok” sushi and a disgusting circus of a dining experience. Is it too much to expect that either the chef or Saito san himself put their foot down and stop this kind of behaviour?

0/10 dining experience and would not repeat.