Sato - North Adelaide

Sato has a friendly atmosphere and a solid menu of choice. That said is suited well to a 2-4 person table and not well suited to larger parties - and you should book ahead! I recommend the dumplings (gyoza). They have a lovely range of traditional rice wine too. Service can be slow when the restaurant is full - but that should not surprise experienced diners.

Dinner for 5. Two of my friends had never tried edamame so it was a delight to order some very morish Sato edamame for them. We also got a large bottle of house sake which again they had never tried. I found it all too easy to drink. My friends ordered a plate of tempura vegetables to share and there was a large range of vegetables in the crisp tempura. My picky vegetarian tweenie even had some. Her main meal was Avocado Salad Roll which she ate the lot of, except one piece which fell apart. She gave me her pickled ginger, which was the BEST EVER, and the waiter was kind enough to show me the packet so I could buy the same brand for myself. I like to order something I haven't tried, and as a vegetarian, there aren't many choices in a Japanese restaurant. I had green tea soup (Nori Chazuke) which was full of rice with seaweed on top. It was delicious and salty but I wasn't hungry enough to eat the rice. A greater ratio of soup to rice would have suited me. The... read more

A family birthday celebration bought us to Sato. They have Japanese and western seating options. The staff were all pleasant and very helpful. Sato has a decent wine list which was good. We tried a variety of dishes including the beef and fish sashimi - both excellent. Tempura - very good. The gyoza were tasty enough as was the okonomiyaki and katsu. The chicken kaarage could have been crispier and spicier. Not the best Japanese restaurant around but worth a visit if on Melbourne street and have a hankering for Japanese food.

Dinner for 5. Two of my friends had never tried edamame so it was a delight to order some very morish Sato edamame for them. We also got a large bottle of house sake which again they had never tried. I found it all too easy to drink. My friends ordered a plate of tempura vegetables to share and there was a large range of vegetables in the crisp tempura. My picky vegetarian tweenie even had some. Her main meal was Avocado Salad Roll which she ate the lot of, except one piece which fell apart. She gave me her pickled ginger, which was the BEST EVER, and the waiter was kind enough to show me the packet so I could buy the same brand for myself. I like to order something I haven't tried, and as a vegetarian, there aren't many choices in a Japanese restaurant. I had green tea soup (Nori Chazuke) which was full of rice with seaweed on top. It was delicious and salty but I wasn't hungry enough to eat the rice. A greater ratio of soup to rice would have suited me. The meat-eaters shared Pork Katsu and Beef Shogayaki, and declared the beef the better of the two. The small but comfortable restaurant (we were in a booth) was fairly full this weeknight (I had booked a couple of hours ahead), the staff were smiling and friendly and the service timely.

I don't usually leave reviews, but we just had a very bad experience with them last night that I feel compelled to warn people. Be aware that while some of their food is very good, their service can be very bad that it's a MAJOR TURN OFF. We ordered two things: sashimi appetiser, and beef teriyaki Banquet A (comes with appetiser, gyoza and yakitori, rice and miso, and dessert)..two items...but they completely messed it up. Despite me pointing at what we specifically wanted at the menu, just in case there was a slightly language barrier, they still completely messed up the order. Not only that, when we reiterated for the nth time that we had ordered the Banquet A option, and that they had only delivered the main so far, another waitress who can speak better English than the others apologised and promised that the yakitori and gyoza will be coming out in 10mins. Come 10mins, we followed up and spoke to her again and she was totally clueless. She blanked out. She... read more