Restaurant Anzu

The service and ambiance at Anzu is so nice. The food is better than typical hotel restaurant food. I haven't been for dinner, but enjoy the breakfast. It's really nice that they let children have a discounted buffet. Since my husband and I have smaller appetites and eat light breakfasts, we order a la carte. We appreciate that the entire party doesn't have to order the buffet in order for buffet access. The best thing is the hospitality. The host, servers, and staff always always give guests exceptional treatment.

This review is based on our recent afternoon tea experience only. We arrived at the Hotel Nikko, checked into Restaurant Anzu for our afternoon tea reservation. Hotel Nikko interior is beautiful by the way, separate review.Pro: Very friendly staff. Great service. Beautiful space. Lovely ambiance & quiet. Cute place settings. Nice bathrooms.Con: Afternoon tea is very subpar. Choices of tea tend to be limited and toward too sweet selections. The finger sandwiches bread was too dry and didn't seem fresh. The sweets offered seemed to be factory-made, doesn't seem to be house made confections. Also one pastry had a hair stuck to it. That was ick! Other places I have been to offer Devonshire Cream (aka clotted cream) for scones and things but here, they had a small dish of whipped cream. The tea cups while nice weren't suitable for afternoon hot tea drinking because there's no handle, so burning hot. When we first sat down, we asked if there were other food offerings as my husband wasn't really into the tea experience but came in because of me. We were going to order additional food for him, but they didn't have anything which turned out to be good since the food was not good anyway.Tea experience was $100 for two with an auto gratuity of 20% which is fine if everything was awesome, but based on our experience, it's more for our friendly waiter.Because we didn't really eat or drink a lot here, we basically just took some photos, and looked up nearby places for lunch. Located on the second floor inside Hotel Nikko on Mason between O'Farrell and Ellis.

Started off badly, got worseWhen I booked the New Year's Eve dinner for my family (wife, son and me), OneTable asked whether or not I wanted the $140/person Prix Fixe and I responded No. I checked the day after I completed the booking and it still said No. But when we were seated we were given the Prix Fixe menu, so I asked the server for the regulation menu. He said, we only have Prix Fixe on Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day so OneTable was wrong.Resigned to Prix Fixe, we made our choices from the meager selections.The starter was the tiniest oyster I'd ever seen, with four or five tiny cavier eggs on top.Next we had spicy tuna rolls. We came to the Bay Area from Tokyo 14 years ago, and spicy tuna is not Japanese. But we all ordered it because the vegetarian roll looked sad.Next we had consommé, which was OK but it said "Consume" on the menu. For this price one would expect spell checking. The consommé was nice, but no better than the Knorr instant consommé we buy at the supermarket in Japantown.Wife and son had pork belly, which was so-so. I can't eat pork, so I had the "Wafu" (Japanese style) pasta. It was not Wafu. It was just fettuccine flavored with cream sauce and a little olive oil--too rich, not Wafu, and it gave me an upset stomach. And it was highway robbery--the main dish for a $140/person dinner??In the end wife and son had chocolate lava cake and I had pumpkin panna cotta. The pumpkin pudding was OK. The lava cake was not--it was just a chocolate cupcake scooped out with bitter, partially melted bitter chocolate in the middle.To have a bee sting on a crying face (how we say, "Add insult to injury") service was extremely slow. We had to wait at least 15-20 minutes between each tiny serving.Then at the end, the check ALREADY ADDED a 20% Service Charge, and left a blank for Additional Tip. I understand adding the tip in advance for a large group, but we were only three people. If I could I would have reduced the tip to 18%...

We make a habit of having dinner at Anzu before a performance at Feinsteins SF, and last night was no exception. More about the combined experience and some changes we were not aware of, at the end!Service continues to be top notch at Anzu. Our server was attentive, friendly and professional. The food took a small hit last night. The menu had changed a bit since our last visit, including a Wagyu New York Strip steak that the hubby ordered. I ordered "The Rock" which is on the appetizer menu but consists of thinly sliced raw Wagyu served with a hot rock, so you can cook your own. When dinner arrived, mine was exactly as expected, the beef was so tender and tasty. However, hubby's steak looked like something from the grocery store. It was tough and bland and so I had hubby try mine as comparison, and there was none, the difference was night and day between two "wagyu" products.All in all, I am certain we will go back and not let one bad dinner ruin our repeat experiences.Now for the changes....which if they were made clear on the websites of either the restaurant or #FeinsteinsSF, I missed it. In the past, dining at Anzu would include a partial validation for valet parking, which combined with validation from the club, would basically take care of your parking costs. NOT ANYMORE!So at Anzu, they now add an automatic 20% gratuity, which I generally do not have a problem with, but when the credit card receipt comes, it still has a line for tipping. If I hadn't reviewed the bill, and yes I know "who doesn't", I would tip another 20% on top of the amount already charged. Next when the server returned with the bill and my parking tab, she informed us that they no longer validate parking. Next, when we went downstairs to #FeinsteinsSF, we were told that they also no longer validate parking at the hotel, unless you are a "Friend of Feinsteins", which if you are not aware is an annual membership costing several hundred dollars. The hostess stated the change as though there may be other "offsite" parking they validate, but again we were not aware of this change. This resulted in an additional $65 for parking which was not expected.Oh well, the show last night was worth every penny we paid between dinner, show and parking, so I'm not really complaining - just providing a "heads up".

i came here with my co-worker during san francisco restaurant week and took advantage of the prefix menu which featured the following:amusemarin miyagi oysterspear vinegar mignonette, japanese cucumber "air", sturgeon caviarfirstsunomono saladserpent, lemon cucumbers, french breakfast radish, daikon, miso yogurt vinaigrette, salmon roemainchoice of:pan roasted seabassroasted baby carrots, carrot miso puree, autumn chicories, yuzu butter-or-honey-yuzu kosho glazed quailbutternut squash, kohlrabi, cranberry beans, ginger white soy reductiondessertyuzu panna cottaalmond crumble, candied persimmoni selected the sea bass as my main. every item was beautifully executed and tasted heavenly.my co-worker ordered the anzu roll and misoyaki baked black cod from the regular menu and we shared our food to get a wider tasting of the menu.we both agreed all of the food was delicious, but the black cod was our favorite. the fish was juicy and was served in a light soy based broth.loved the food presentation and attention to detail. the food was beautiful in taste and appearance. the restaurant was classy and the service was superb. this was 5 solid stars!

This place is an absolute joke and I can't believe anyone would choose to come here. We came here for Valentines Day and got the Valentines Special. It was $85 a person?? Give or take? Included tax and 20% gratuity. We had a table of 4 but our total came out to $400+, makes no sense.__The portion sizes are HALARIOUS. I actually laughed out loud. Fine dining? No literally. Fine like a grain of sand. Our starter appetizer was half a quail egg. The salad was pretty ok. The steak was very good, I'll give it that. Dessert was mid.__We were there for over an hour and came out still hungry of course. Keep in mind- we waited 10 to 15 mins + in between courses. We were starving and looking for another place to eat after this. Skip this place.

Despite what some reviews said about Sunday brunch I decided to give it a try and am very glad I did. High quality and delicious food from the sushi to the hot dishes which included muscovy duck today and a brunch sized bowl of udon noodles with tempura shrimp. The service is outstanding without being intrusive. Friendly and professional and easy to chat with. The restaurant itself is very attractive and appeals to those wanting a better dining experience. And I'm glad I decided to get dessert. A molten lava chocolate cake. This restaurant should have a lot more customers. Yeah the brunch isn't cheap but you get what you pay for. If you want cheap there's a Jack in the Box a block away.

Pretty disappointing experience. We made a reservation here because of restaurant week and after reviewing several menus at various establishments we chose Anzu. What a mistake! Restaurant week exists for people to explore new places. The menu is fixed and includes a starter, entree and desert. Perfect, right? Not exactly. When we arrived, we were welcomed by the host, she was great. Everything went downhill with the server. He immediately offered us sparkling water, of course, we said yes. It was delicious expensive water, but, I expected that, I was planning on ordering more than just the restaurant week menu - because, I wanted to really try the place out. Cocktails, service, ambience- all of it! We both had delicious cocktails, and the bartender was excellent. Back to the server....as I'm perusing the menu, I said, oh! We actually chose to come here, because of restaurant week! His demeanor immediately changed from friendly happy server to - I just want to get you out of here. Total asshole. He brought the menu, and said, oh, there's no halibut, it's salmon and walked away. When he returned, I said, I have some questions...if it's not halibut, and now it's salmon, can you tell me how it's prepared? Is it fresh salmon? Or frozen? Every damn restaurant can serve salmon because it's readily available frozen, and it can taste pretty decent. Trust me, I lived in Seattle....tons of salmon. He said it's the same. I said, what's the same? He said the preparation. So, I guess that means all the stuff with the halibut is with the salmon. Ok! They are completely different flavors of fish. This is unacceptable. Whatever....Seems weird to serve it in leu of halibut with all the same prep. I ordered it. Here comes the appetizer. He plops it down and walks away like a server at IHOP. What is this? How do we eat it,? He left us empty papers that should have had chopsticks inside. Nope! No fork either. We had to pick it up and eat it with our hands! He completely disappeared. The main dish salmon was just ok. The desert was blah. Nothing about this experience or food will make me return or tell anyone else to try this place. DON'T PARTICIPATE IN RESTAURANT WEEK IF YOU DON'T WANT TO ACTUALLY PARTICIPATE. Tell your servers to treat all customers regardless of what they order with respect and courtesy. I feel like I flushed $300 down the toilet.Salmon IS NOT Halibut!!! Paper is not chopsticks or forks. Steer clear of this place until they get their servers trained in common courtesy and actually how to do their job.

Anzu is a lovely restaurant in Nikko Hotel in San Francisco, CA. It's very upscale with fine dining ambiance and service. Our party of five went there before attending a show in Feinstein's at the Nikko, and by doing that we had a table reserved for us in the showroom. The food was delicious, and the show was excellent.

Please read the negative reviews of Anzu carefully. Neither "Lesley D." or "Matthew S.", who both pose as business owners and respond to the people who post bad reviews, are anyone I have ever encountered at this restaurant. You will notice they tell people to get in touch if they have complaints but they don't leave any contact information, not even their last names. And the responses they give are rote -- for example "Lesley" said she was sorry I had a bad lunch but the review I wrote was about dinner! If you scroll through you will notice she repeats the same thing to everyone, it has nothing to do with what they wrote. So when people complain Anzu responds via bot, which is totally consistent with how they treat their customers when you show up there to eat.I repeat, DO NOT patronize this restaurant under any circumstances. You will deeply regret it and maybe even end up getting injured with no one to take accountability for it. No one, that is, except "Lesley D." or "Matthew S.", who will tell you to get in touch without giving you a way to do that. Now let's see if either of them respond to this post.