Koji - London

Perfect dinner for two. Excellent food from starters to dessert fried prawns amazing , excellent service , good wine list. Above all great atmosphere. A classic for every season.

Booked Koji for a date night, same day 30/08/23 but when I arrived the restaurant was closed, no notice online at all said it was closed even Google said it was open usual hours somehow it was actually booked for 06/09/23 which I don’t understand how but ok I’ll take partial blame for that, so we unfortunately had to go to eat somewhere else which was fine but I had tried to call the restaurant to cancel my reservation on multiple days didn’t get no answer so I thought nothing of it (you can book online but can’t cancel online even by text they tell you that) so I was then charged £70 on 10/09/23 for I guess missing my booking? Which also online it says nothing about charges for missing reservations. I find this extremely distasteful considering I had tried multiple times to cancel my reservation, was told online that the restaurant was open when it clearly wasn’t was somehow forced to book a date I definitely didn’t wish to attend (I still don’t see how as the dates are completely different and would be easily noticeable whilst booking that it was the wrong date) extremely poor online booking service considering and I’d say £70 is a lot just for a reservation (which I had tried to cancel with no success) complete money grab, I’ll take slight blame for booking the wrong date but definitely a terrible service as they gave me no chance to cancel mislead me saying the restaurant was open on a day it wasn’t which was a waste of time and money as we had come from Streatham just to try Koji

We were super excited to try Koji, its reputation here and elsewhere preceded it. But last night's meal was pretty disappointing. Two of the best looking mains we ordered, the mackerel and the lamb chops were unavailable, and the pork belly I had to replace it arrived cold. In fairness they did change it, but by that time my partner had finished hers. The whole meal became an oddly staggered affair. In partial defence, the cocktails were excellent. Perhaps this was a one off but for a restaurant at this premium, you'd expect better.

We visited on a busy Friday night. The food was delicious some unusual options which turned out to be delightful. The grilled Octopus was a particular highlight. Unfortunately the service deteriorated as the evening went on. Our dessert didn't arrive for over 40 minutes after ordering it. It looked as if the waiter took our order but didn't pass it to the kitchen until prompted 30 minutes later. There was a lot of confusion over the whisky that we ordered, which took even longer to arrive. To the restaurant's credit they did give us an extra one at no charge, but it wasn't what we'd originally ordered and by that point we were not minded to wait any longer for the right drink to finally arrive. I understand that on the night in question they were short staffed and with the notable exception of our waiter, every member of staff appeared to be working hard to rectify the situation. But when we're paying well over 100 pounds per person for a special meal, the service really should be far better than this. I'd be willing to give the restaurant another try because the food was outstanding. But I'd be reluctant to risk it on a busy Friday or Saturday night there's too much risk of the evening being spoiled by poor service.

The evening started off really well. It was a birthday celebration so I brought my family as a special treat. The food is very good-although very expensive, I understood the pricing. The service was fine but not exceptional. We arrived at 630 and all went smoothly at that point. But then the restaurant filled up and the service totally deteriorated. Pudding never arrived-although the dessert wine arrived very early without the pudding. It was chaos and very unsatisfactory. We gave up on pudding and even paying for the bill took a whole! At £450 for the four of us, this restaurant really needs to pull its socks up. I won’t be rushing back even though we are locals and love Japanese food.