Stephanie W.
Yelp
Zakura does good food, that's for sure, but unfortunately the service and the BYOB fee leaves a fair bit to be desired.
I met up with a friend there on Monday, she having made a booking for two in case the restaurant was chocca. When we arrived, the waitress lead us to the most awkward 2 person table in the restaurant beside a group of some very oiled (drunk), very loud men. It was next to impossible to hear each other, and the table also was awkwardly placed so I couldn't rest my left foot, nor she her right foot. We eventually asked the waitress if we could move to one of the 4 empty 4 person tables in the restaurant. The waitress assured us she would check about our query, but promptly forgot about us. After about 10 minutes of waiting for her to return, we stopped her again and asked what the story was. Rather than admit she had utterly forgotten, she decided to lie and tell us the table was booked. Eventually we managed to get across to another 2 person table, right beside the 4 person one we had enquired about, and guess what... No one ever arrived and sat at that table. Not terribly impressed about being forgotten and then fibbed to.
My friend and I had also decided to opt for non alcoholic drinks and brought some lemonade. Upon paying the bill, it turned out we were charged FOUR EURO per bottle of fizzy drink. When I asked why we were being charged so much when we brought non booze (thus we should not be charged for their booze license, at least that's how other places explain it to me. Or I've understood it to be....), we were told by another waitress that we were being charged 4 euro each to off set the charges of customers who 'bring cola and lots of vodka'. This doesn't make sense to me as she even accepted that we hadn't drank alcohol, but insisted we should pay the 8 euro charge (2 bottles all together) as other customers bring actual liquor in.
The food was good, but I don't think I'll be back as the service was tepid and limp and they make it clear that they'd rather be elsewhere. (Not that they were mean, they just appeared so indifferent to their customers). It was also quite pricey for the whole thing if you factor in the rip off 8 euro charge for non booze. 4 sushi dishes (shared), the 8 euro 'booze' charge and a very small pot of green tea (and equally small peppermint tea), came to 46.90, which was a total rip off for the food and the expereicne.
I'd suggest going elsewhere, we both left feeling quite deflated by the atmosphere.