Dozo

nothing extraordinary for the food with this price range… it’s good, but not worth the price.

Service was not great but I loved the food. The décor is very cozy and classy — there are some secluded tables for groups, you feel like you are in a little cavern. Loved that. The sushi was amazing. I recommend the dragon sushi.

My sister and I stumbled upon this little gem when we were walking through South Kensington in London. The service was incredible and the food was fantastic. Best service we’ve had in the UK so far. It’s a little expensive but worth it! I’d say attire is business casual

I’m actually surprised this place has such poor reviews. I was in the neighborhood the other day and craving some Japanese cuisine, so we called around 5:30 PM and were told that we couldn’t get a table for 6:30 PM, but that 7 PM would work. The restaurant only opens at 6 PM, so I was a bit surprised that it was so busy right at the start. When we arrived, the upstairs tables where we were seated were all full, and my best guess was that it was a student crowd all coming after class or something. The upstairs and downstairs have completely different vibes, as upstairs is pretty casual but downstairs has a bit more mood lighting and can be considered actually fairly nice. I liked that in both areas, they have traditional Japanese seating where you sit on the floor and your legs drop into a space under the table.
As for the food, I had the volcano maki roll to start, which seemed to be a very popular order, as both groups of diners around us had ordered it too. It’s extremely rich and tasty, with eel sushi basically sitting in a bed of mayonnaise with fish eggs and bonito sprinkled on top. My friend had a much healthier sashimi set which he said tasted very fresh. We then shared the beef nabe, which had tofu, beef, sweet potato noodles and cabbage served in a clay pot. It was a bit too sweet for me, but otherwise I enjoyed it and we were both very full. The food service was also very quick and we finished our meal within 45 minutes. We experienced no problems with the staff, unlike the other reviewers.

Tja, ich bin mir egrlich gesagt nicht ga z sicher, ob mich nicht auch die ganzen Unilocal Reviews etwas beeinflusst haben. Die klangen ja nicht gerade viel versprechend.
Was soll ich saven, unser Essen war ganz ok. Nichts wovon man noch seinen Enkeln davon erzählen würde, aber ganz passabel. Zudem sind die Kellner super nett und schnell und das Restaurant an sich ist auch echt hübsch.

Food there were not fresh, plates not clean (some chilli oil on edge…) And the service were HORRIBLE!!! They threw dishes to me without saying anything. One time my hand was hit by the coming dish… Can you imagine that… it’s not a circus it’s A RESTAURANT! And right after I fished my last piece of salmon sashimi… they refused to refill my tea and asked me to pay the bill and left the table for next customers. my total dining time was 30mins, including waiting time. I’ve never tried such restaurant rude as this.
Try this restaurant if you ever wanted to ruin your dinner;(

More like 3.5 for the overall experience. 4 for the food.
I came here the other day after visiting the nearby Victoria and Albert Museum late night event. The restaurant was full but we waited outside for about 15 minutes before being seated. The interior décor was very tasteful, quite modern and stylish with Japanese style seating.
We ordered a bottle of sake and a variety of dishes. This included the sashimi assortment– 3 pieces of 4 types of fish, an order of the toro and scallop nigiri, the tuna tartare (served with a quail egg), the dragon roll and the tofu steak.
All dishes were tasty; the cuts of fish were a decent size and very fresh. The roll was also very good– it was crunchy on the outside with a nice complexity of flavours. I surprisingly really enjoyed the tofu too! It was coated in a sweet and sticky flavourful sauce.
For some reason the service at Dozo doesn’t match the quality of the food. Our server wasn’t very friendly at all– I felt as though we were irritating him when asking questions about the menu. When spending in excess of £100 for dinner, I expect to be treated a little better.

I found a WORM in my sushi takeout last week. I did take it back to the restaurant and was given a refund but never again will I eat here. The sushi didn’t taste fresh and again there was a WORM in my dish!

COCKROACHES… my girlfriend found one crawling up her arm during dinner last night and the staff simply watched it happen… they then proceeded to just hand us the check! I was I’m such shock I just wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. I am now in the process of calling the health department for an inspection. Shame on them! At first good food, and then it became disgusting after the fact!

Had a bad experience here on Saturday night: walked in and ordered take away– 2 ramen and sushi rolls. We waited for ages, got our Food eventually however the pots with soup were stacked on top of each other and the lid collapsed so everything spilled out in the bag! Plus, got the wrong ramen. Not great for take away, and food was OK.

Menu is quite extensive, food is ok. The girl who works downstairs on Saturdays is really rude and unfriendly. Experience overall is «OK».

Tourist TRAP: fancy interior with shitty service and bad sushi … Seriously I can do better rice in a rice cooker than the mushy rice they glued around the rolls.

Perhaps best sushi in South Ken. Service and food are descent value for the area. Good lunch special.

Food was not memorable but the interior was nice and we discovered a yummy sparkling sake. There were a few cave/​den-​like tables tucked away in the back and there was good use of Japanese-​y accents to make it feel more authentic. I’m not sure about the sushi and sushi chef though.
I recently walked by a sushi place with the same name in Soho. It might be another branch?

Completely average sushi joint. Nothing much to recommend either for or against, its okay to head there if you’re in the neighborhood but skip the Botan Ebi (large sweet shrimp) as overpriced.

Wished I read the reviews first before I come here. The servers here needs some basic training first. I came in by myself and there isn’t a table yet. The server basically tells me «no table!» I wasn’t sure I should get lost or what. I decided to wait. Then a table opens up, and I sat at it but a different server came to tell me that’s reserved. Pretty much BS because the last table was given to a walk in party of 3. I can understand restaurants don’t like to offer 4-​person table to a lone diner. But there is a better way to say it than to lie.
Anyway, I am really in the mood for Asian. I waited. A couple left and I found my own table. No one really wanted me as a customer I guess because no one come get me.
After trying to order a few things on the menu, and they are out of all of them, I ended up getting unagi grilled and crab fried rice. Fried rice is way too salty. Unagi is standard but portion is very small. Only half or less of a typical fillet and not particularly nice.
So, try something else if u find yourself at this place.

3-​star value. 4-​star food. 3-​star value. 4-​star food… hmm. Which mark to give Dozo?
Being a student, it is hard to find places that aren’t chains to eat in this part of town. That said, though most of the dishes here are rather expensive (a bento with teriyaki will run you around £18), I found the salmon-​don to be quite good value. A box of well-​seasoned sushi rice topped with plentiful salmon sashimi, shiso leaf, salmon roe, ginger, wasabi, and Japanese pickles, served with miso soup, all for under £8. That is a 4+ dish for presentation, taste, and value.
The space is really pretty (though rather generic high-​end Asian with fake tatami mat table areas). The service was prompt and friendly (though I was dining at a slow time). I’d come back for the salmon don, but otherwise, I doubt this place is worth the prices of most of the dishes.

Bit disappointing. We managed to order dishes that had us at under £10 a head for food but most of the menu is pretty expensive. The sushi was fine I guess — I don’t have a very experienced palate. I quite liked the combination of spring onion with fatty tuna, but not so impressed with the salmon maki roll (I think I actually just don’t like rolls as much as sashimi — but sashimi was twice the price).
Décor is really nice — fun lowered seating around the tables (although hard to manœuvre into wearing my suit skirt and heels!)
Overall, I prefer Sushi 54 in Putney. Actually I kind of prefer Abokado. I also would second another reviewer and suggest Tombo instead if you’re in South Ken & fancy Japanese — I’ve only had tea & cake there but it’s so cute!

I question if this place is authentically Japanese. I believe that if we probed deeper we’d discover that it is really owned and run by — ta ta taaaaa shock-​horror– Chinese. The staff are all Chinese as are the chefs (from what I heard on the way to the loos). The food even tastes Chinese.
That said, the place is not bad given the dearth of good ‘Japanese’ in the area. As mentioned by a previous reviewer, the dragon roll is very good. We also had a salmon starter which was three giant rice lumps each plastered with slices (plural) of raw salmon and topped with tobiko, ikura and fake-​caviar, respectively. They were tasty, if a little unorthodox. We also had a crunchy spicy tuna roll, Pham-​style but less delicious and a tempura ramen. This latter dish was ok but the tempura batter definitely Chinese (i.e. heavy, dense ‘banana fritter-​esque’ rather than frilly and crispy) and the soup stock also had Chinese undertones.
All said, it was a filling and fairly reasonably priced meal. I would go back because it’s in the ‘hood. However, three stars because it’s neither amazing nor authentic.

I’d disagree with the previous reviewer — she should feel like a bozo for dining at Dozo.
I live in South Kensington and was basically ecstatic when a Japanese restaurant which isn’t a floating boat restaurant run by Indians was opening. Even more inrigued when I looked through the glass prior to opening day and the place looked like a Japanese hakkasan — EXCITING!
Anyhow, finally made my way there and ugh what a mistake. The sushi chef has had no training whatsoever — she cut the fish into slices without considering the grain, the sinew, etc., etc., — which left hardly fresh fish tough, and gross. Even the tamago (egg) sushi which should be impossible to ruin was gross.
The cooked food wasn’t any better and my fiancees beef teriyaki bowl was a putrid concoction of tough and dry beef and horrid sauce.
Sad yo.

Playing tourist does lead one into tourist traps. The area around South Kensington is tourist central with a lot of museums and accommodation in the area.
I was trying to find a reasonably priced meal in the area and eventually discovered Dozo, which had a wide range of different styles of Japanese food and the prices were soothing my Chinese Thrift Gene’s fevered brow!
The interior was nicely done with an attempt at making the seating resemble a traditional Japanese restaurant. I got a seat at the bar and watched the sushi chefs at work — an older suitably Japanese looking gent with a younger American sounding young lady!
My main reason for eating here was the sub £9 chirashi sushi, which was less than half price than the other Japanese restaurrants in the vicinity. Sadly, in this case, my CTG let me down. The presentation of the selection of sashimi on rice was quite cute — in its own box but I found the fish a bit dry and not flavoursome — perhaps cut a little too thin for this dish.
My other dish of chicken thigh skewers took a long time to arrive and required a litle polite enquiry from the waitress. The meat was sweet and moist.
I didn’t quite feel a bozo for dining at Dozo but I hope there are better options in this restaurant-​rich area