Itsu

Really enjoyed itsu. Way better than Yo sushi — far more authentic and tasty sushi. I recommend the salmon box. Also you have to try the ice cream — it tastes incredible. The cocoa vanilla is my favourite — vanilla ice cream coated with chocolate on a stick!

Top quality sushi and really friendly and helpful staff!!! Quite pricey but I recommend the hot boxes as they’re more filling and very tasty — although tricky to eat the petit pois with chopsticks!!!

Food in this Japanese restaurant is very good.
Here you can find the traditional dishes and drinks and you can experience the eastern cuisine. It is suitable for big parties and there is a bar, lounge-​like seating on the first floor.
The prices are average to expensive.
Itsu offers an outdoor sushi shop from where you can buy food for home.

I normally like itsu for a quick sushi at lunch time. This one in Notting Hill gate has a wider menu and conveyor belt together with table service. The food was disappointing and expensive for what it is. I would suggest going to other places for sit down sushi. For example Maguro in mada vale is much better for the same price (actually their bento boxes at lunch time are better value for money).

Itsu is cause for breaking out the annoying early aughts teenage lingo: It’s just SO boriiiing. The conveyor goes something like this: vegetable roll, vegetables with dipping sauce, salmon nigiri, salmon sashimi AND nigiri, ‘order miso soup’ sign on a miso bowl, weird chopped up tuna ball thing, ‘seared’ and ‘crusted’ tuna slices, salmon, salmon, salmon…
The upside is the friendly staff, who come running whenever you press the ‘ring flight attendant’ red light from the counter. The Asahi was a bit stale; the spicy vegetable gyoza well caramelized, but greasy. Spend your money more wisely on something tasty on Portobello Road Market.

Nice little Japanese place. Good sushi and Saki. Variety of sushi among other Japanese cuisine. Really liked the beer… especially after having drunk two glasses of French red wine across the street at The Gate Picturehouse (which is why this place got an extra star).

My wife and I enjoyed our meal at Itsu immensely. The only (minor) drawback I could see was the selection on the conveyors — the sushi was excellent, but tame. No «interesting» rolls or nigiri, they seem to stick with Tuna and Salmon. While I believe that is probably a reasonable business choice in this style of restaurant, it is a bit of a drawback.
Nonetheless, our service was impeccable and everything we tried was excellent. I too enjoyed the ambience and thought the bar upstairs looked quite posh, although I did not try a drink or hang out up there.
Overall we would recommend Itsu highly.

I often buy the lunch boxes to take away from there. These are good quality and price!
The cuisine though is fusion rather than Japanese, I don’t see why they put pesto everywhere?

Damn you Zara L for stealing my thunder for her’s and her’s reviews!
You see, so much as I love parakeets and the fact that these are plenty cute and loving the fact that they have living animals in the bar; posh itsu just didn’t do it for me.
Sure, it was nice to sip cheap sake and Japanese beers (asahi and also of the budvar and tiger variety– apparently Japan has just gained 2 new colonies…) while staring pensively at the Notting Hill Coronet. Sure, it was cool to be able to run downstairs to grab a few plates and eat in the cocktail bar but sheesh could you be more cheesy with the décor? Giant led butterflies? Horny goats? I think we went way beyond fun kitsch (yes, tiled mirrored wall and giant mirrored ball is fun) to horrendous tacky-​ness in about 5 seconds.
Actually getting rid of those ridiculously huge butterflies and those damn wings around the mounted goat will easily mollify me.
And please read your menus properly before you go printing dozens of them. It just makes you look moronic.
My drink was well… itsu quality. It was just fine (or if you prefer, replace blah word of choice).
Company however, was awesome.

I heart Itsu for lunch. I heart more an Itsu that you can pretend to be a social occasion after dinner. And this one can: Pretty conveyabelts full of sushi, giant disco balls and a cocktail lounge. Woop.
It was pretty quiet tonight (on a Saturday night) but it was very cold so that may have frightened away punters. We drank in the cocktail bar upstairs and were very pleased to find real live parquets in a cage (none of that Tiki bar plastic fauxness thank you),.
In total we consumed one sake bottle, one beer and one tea. I had the tea and therefore went crazy by grabbing plates (well, one plate of sashimi) from the downstairs sushi bar which they toted onto our menu.
The toilets were also nice — but confusingly could only be discriminated by the colour glass on the door. Not good for the colour blinded.
OK so I admit Itsu bar was sort of lacking a buzz — I think people would rather not go to their daily lunch place to grab a cocktail, and the music was pretty blah. But I love Itsu: the food and the décor. It was itimate, and pretty — the perfect antidote to the crowded Notts Hill pub we were just in. I could have easily racked up a bill if I wasn’t being cautious tonight. More tea? 4 stars.

Itsu, a new favourite takeaway lunch spot, has 2 more restauranty establishments – Notting Hill & Canary Wharf. I bought a voucher on MyCityDeal and we headed there over the weekend for lunch. It was packed (always take as a good sign) and waited upstairs in the bar for about 10 minutes for a table.
Downstairs, there are 3 large conveyor belts next to which you are seated and then its the typical deal – choose off the belt or ring the buzzer and order hot dishes from the server.
Food was fantastic! In my opinion, leaps and bounds above YoSushi. We ate tuna sashimi, seared tuna, salmon sushi, Itsu’s chicken soup, etc… and all was so yum! My only disappointment was the spicy edamame beans, which come drenched in oil – you eat these to be healthy! Though, a good way to get my bfriend to eat them!
Not cheap but with the voucher, was a good value. Would go back in a heartbeat.

There’s a whiff of the Generation Game about this new Itsu; you need to be quick and grab your chosen dishes from a conveyor belt, which snakes around the tables.
You can bet though as soon as you whip some crab rolls away that something better will catch your eye further along the belt. And you soon learn that if you miss that delectable tub of Bang Bang chicken you’ve spotted, that it’ll be some time before it glides by again… that’s if some other punter doesn’t whisk it away first. However, we found the staff were only too happy to go in search of whatever dish we’d missed from the belt.
Strangely, the conveyor belt doesn’t seem to adversely affect the atmosphere of this comfortable spot, that’s a world away from the starker lunchtime Itsu experience.
They’ve also come up with a great credit crunch friendly concept — the ‘early deal’ whereby if you arrive between 3pm and 8pm you can choose any four cold plates from the conveyor for £9.95. I would recommend you stick to these as the more expensive hot dishes my friend and I also tried weren’t nearly as impressive.

I was turned away from this new and admittedly attractive branch of Itsu tonight because of someone else’s mistake.
Having been invited to a launch by the restaurant’s PR agency, I showed up on time to be greeted by a confused staff who had no idea what I was talking about when I said I was there for the event. I took a seat in the upstairs bar (where the event was to be held), waited awhile and was finally met by the manager who explained that it had been cancelled. Apparently, an email had been sent about the cancellation but for some reason not to me (I’ve since doubled checked my inbox as well as my Spam folder — Nope, I wasn’t contacted). The last I’d heard was that the PR who was organizing the launch was really looking forward to meeting me.
When the manager explained there was to be no event, I suggested that I’m here now and would be happy to review your restaurant.” He then could have responded a number of ways, such as providing me with a sample of their food (since that’s why I was there and why I was invited) or offering some sort of concession for living up to my end of the bargain. Instead he stated that I «could not eat for free tonight but only with the group. What group? I didn’t know anyone else who was invited. I had simply come out to try the restaurant upon the request of its PR.
I have no problem paying for my meals but when offered free food and drink, I expect to receive it. I don’t live in Notting Hill and probably passed by a dozen other Itsu restaurants in order to attend tonight’s launch. The Tube is expensive for me, and with the Circle Line out of commission it was a real hassle schlepping across town.
As the saying goes, shit happens. Still, it would have taken minimal effort for the manager to appreciate my situation and attempt to accommodate me. Oh well. I’m sure the food’s fine; I’ve enjoyed dining at other Itsu eateries. However, there’s much to be improved with respect to customer service at this one. I don’t think I’ll be heading back and I suggest you steer clear as well.