Nagisa Japanese Restaurant

We had a very poor experience at Nagisa last night… Some of us ordered ribs and received pork belly, our waiter who was doing his best to compensate also smelled bad enough for me to consider telling him and there was most likely nobody Japanese in the staff. The fish was okay but the rice undercooked so I would recommend to order sashimi and not nigiris. It may be a good place for a few drinks and nibbles after work but I would recommend anyone who knows real Japanese cuisine to stay away.

Great ambience, great service and the food is great. First time in Newcastle, this restaurant did not disappoint at all!

What an amazing experience! The staff here show a lot of respect to all their customers and make amazing Japanese food. I’ll definitely be going back in. Thanks guys.

Nagisa was amazing and still is. I went last night after some time, it seems to have changed management, or at least chefs, but the menu was more diverse and the food fantastic. Service was responsive but not overbearing and incredibly polite. The salmon carpaccio is highly recommended!
Nagisa was amazing and still is. I went last night after some time, it seems to have changed management, or at least chefs, but the menu was more diverse and the food fantastic. Service was responsive but not overbearing and incredibly polite. The salmon carpaccio is highly recommended!

Once, this was amazing and mindblowing. Anything eaten in here was highly addictive and worth every penny. And then the staff suddenly changed. Gone were the Japanese girls who were so knowledgable about every dish, every sauce, every garnish, and in their place we got snotty Australian girls who would answer a question by taking the menus from your hands and reading them aloud, slowly and patronisingly.
We attempted to go to lunch on two separate occasions. The first was half an hour before they closed. Now, if they had a restricted menu for that last half an hour, I would have understood, though I personally believe that the earliest the kitchen should close is fifteen minutes before, and that opening hours are serving hours unless the restaurant is empty.
A couple were enjoying their entrée but we were unceremoniously told that the kitchen was closed and we were to leave. When we inquired about the hours, to make sure we hadn’t gotten them wrong, she repeated rudely that the kitchen had closed and we were to leave.
Our second attempt was forty minutes before closing and the hostess visibly rolled her eyes at us and told us we were too late for lunch. When we finally made it to lunch several days later, the charming hostess recognised us and proceeded to grunt at us, snatch and shove things and not bring us our order until the other waitress took pity on us and brought us our food.
There was also a take away order so bungled we didn’t know what to say (my omelette entrée was served on top of my udon noodles; my sister’s chicken dish came with mashed potato instead of rice? Just plain bizarre.)
The final nail in the coffin was dinner some months later. Our tempura was so greasy it left puddles, and the seafood had not been cleaned and was clearly not fresh — the squid and crab was little more than grey paste. The sashimi salad portion had shrunk by almost half without a price drop, and the salad was limp, the sashimi not nearly as fresh as it should be. Three dishes and two non-​alcoholic drinks cost us almost $ 100. We were done.
The manager did offer us a gift card for half the meal, but honestly we haven’t been back because both the service and the food has gotten so awful that we’d rather stay home.
This is a tragedy, since Nagisa was once one of the most amazing places in Newcastle and I so wish I’d tried the teppanyaki bar back when it was good. Oh well.