Benihana Restaurant

The chefs are very talented and its a real talking point/ice breaker watching them cook in front of you and throw bits of food into your mouth. But you get an astonishingly small amount of food for the money. We had once course which set me back about £60 (not including drinks) and I was still starving when we left

I can highly recommend Benihana in Piccadilly. It ticks every box for a great, fun and delicious dinner out, whether you're in a group or on a first date.
The staff are extremely friendly and attentive, without being too much. We were greeted by our chef - great guy called Francis and he was very good at his job...keeping the diners entertained, knowing what we all had ordered, showing off his culinery skills and finally getting the delicious food to our plates in spot on time.
The only tiny point which doesn't really need much of a comment was the rather squeaky/wonky chair I had. But saying this, I soon forgot that it was wonky once the food was being prepared so skillfully and upon tasting it - Delicious!!.....Did I say 'wonky chair?' What wonky chair?

I'll be going back and should make more of an evening of it I hope, as my company and I were dashing off to the theatre.
Thanks Benihana - Superb!!

I went for the £22 8 course meal with a friend and we opted for black cod, prawns, steak and chicken for the main teppenyaki. Was very impressed with the food and value. All in (with some sake and water) the bill was under £50. No need to order anything else and very entertaining chef by the name of Hayo Moto. Recommend it. Do bear in mind though that the restaurant itself is a little bit tired however still worth it.

I have been to Benihana both in the UK and Hawaii and it is a fab eating experience. It is best to go with a small group as it's a very fun place where the chefs cook the food in front of you and are quite the showmen. They use good quality ingredients which are very fresh. Try the wasabi ice cream for something totally different - I am dying to go back just to have some more of it.

When I was small, the treat ne plus ultra for my family involved a trip to Port Solent cinema and then to the Char Bar where you could whisper it cook your OWN FOOD. Never mind that we could quite easily have done this at home instead of leaving it all to my poor mum, this was properly being a grown-up.

So Benihana must be even more grown-up because you have someone doing the cooking for you, but you can WATCH THEM (no, it's actually just like mum again).

And bless it, it's incredibly 90s. The food was...fine. The chef cooking it was...a bit mortifying actually. Incredibly dated, but fine if you like that sort of thing, but really - it's no Char Bar.

I've been recommending this for a while on Twitter for anyone celebrating a special occasion. The cocktails are delicious (especially the ones including japanese sake) and the staff are always friendly. The best thing though is when you sit down at the table.

If you've never eaten teppanyaki food before, it's basically food cooked on a large flat grill. In this case, the grill is sat in the middle of your table, which you may be sharing with other groups depending on the size of yours.

You order your food, for example steak, prawns and chicken, and you're bought a bowl of miso soup and sushi whilst you wait for the chef.

The chef comes out, introduces himself, and has a little joke with everyone. The food is cooked in front of you, including egg fried rice from scratch. Knives are flipped, mini onion volcanos are created, delicious food is served.

Go when the meal deal is on and enjoy an entertaining night out and some fresh and tasty food.

"Are you like Madonna?" our chef asked while we were seated, giggling and transfixed by the teppanyaki food preparation happing in front of us.
He chuckled a little when greeted with our puzzled expressions and said "You here for the very first time?" and then broke into the song, expertly chopping and flipping up a storm.
There in lies the charm. It is a bit pricey, but you get incredible food and entertainment!
Our chef was quite the charmer, inciting 6 ladies to attempt to catch egg flipped into their open mouths in exchange for free ice-cream is actually quite impressive!
Come here not just for the food (butterflied prawns are perfect) but for the cheeky chapy chefs.

Found this place on Toptable and saw that it had a 7 course menu for £19.50 and also liked the sound of the whole concept about your food being cooked in front of you. We went on a Tuesday lunch so it was nice and quiet. Found the whole thing really enjoyable and entertaining. I wasn’t expecting to be full after, but was nicely surprised by the amount of food we got…and the quality. I was impressed by the whole package. The only drawback was the decor is a bit dated and service was a little slow. Definitely worth a visit but now I’ve done it, probably won’t be back for a while.

Where else in London can you get a chef who cooks and entertains. Who needs dinner and a show! The chef was very skilled and a real comedian. The food was good, but not as good tepanyaki as I have had in my home country.

Benihana is a great venue for a group meal. Especially if everyone is up for a bit of entertainment and interactivity with their meal. Benihana is a Japanese teppanyaki experience where they cook the food on grill tops live in front of you. There are few venues scattered across London but the venue we selected was near Piccadilly Circus for is central location. Upon arriving at Benihana they guided us to the bar which is a good idea for when you are meeting a large group of people but also quick way of spending your money! We’d booked for the offer of “7 courses for £16.50″ off top table - the booking stating that it was imperative that you arrive on time otherwise they would cancel it. A bit harsh but I think in most cases, especially when there’s a large group of you, the restaurant won’t mind if you’re a little bit late. As it was they kept us waiting anyway for our table.

Because there were 11 of us we couldn’t all fit around one cook top so we were split into two groups and taken care of by two chefs. Our chef was very cute, and very Spanish, whilst the other girls got the head chef. I think we were better off because our chef was quite flashy including setting fire to the food (deliberate of course) on numerous occasions, creating a little flaming volcano of onion rings and generally tossing food all over the place. At one stage he even did the throw-the-food-into-your-mouth trick with one of the girls.

As for the food, the “7 courses” got us two “meats” (choice of beef, chicken, salmon, prawns, and another fish), fried rice, salad, vegetables, soup, and California rolls (the rolls were delish!) I didn’t think it would be enough food but actually I was fairly filled up by the end of the meal. The only negative to the concept was that the meats were cooked at different rates so we were all eating at different times and sometimes the food was overcooked. I couldn’t complain about the service which was at all times friendly and impeccable.

Overall I think Benihana is a good fun place to go with a group of people to experience something a little distinctive from the usual dining experience even if the food is not the highest quality or best tasting you’ve had. Its definitely a place to be entertained if you get the right chef. Be warned, however, that it can get quite pricey if you add bottles of wine to your meal.

If you’ve got a group of about 20 people you want to entertain and have a decent budget - then this is where you want to go, especially if the people are work colleagues and you’re a little concerned about who’s sitting next to who and are they going to enjoy the night.

I recently organised our firm’s Christmas party and Benihana’s was the perfect choice. The food was outstanding and the service impeccable. The bill was much less than I expected and the atmosphere was brilliant. I can’t sing their praises enough and as testimony to the suitability of the venue, the partners in the firm have asked me to make sure we can do next year’s Christmas party there too.

We had 6 party menu’s to choose from and they were very flexible with dietary requirements. Substituting meat for fish and accommodating various food intolerances.

The theatrical nature of the Tepanyaki style cooking was fabulous 'entertainment’ and a really good ice breaker.
Do go here at least once in your lifetime - and twice if you can.

I would really recommend Benihana’s because it is so different. The big selling point of the restaurant (I do not want to call it a gimmick) is that each table has its own chef who actually cooks on a hot plate right in front of you. It is great fun to see the chef chopping preparing and cooking your dinner in such close proximity. The food itself is lovely and authentic Japanese cuisine. This particular branch is bang in the centre of London whereas other branches are not so central. It is not the cheapest meal out you will ever have but worth it for the experience especially if there is a group of you.

It’s a dinner and show combined in one. You order your food and the chef cook it in front of you in this giant hotplate. The chef will try to show off and do all sort of tricks in front of you… it’s quite entertaining (more so after a few drinks). Unless you are still in the world of unlimited work 'entertainment’ expense account I’d recommend you to stick to the set menu. Don’t be alarmed by the sound of the 7 course menu, I think they count a bowl of steamed rice as a course.

I love Benihana. I used to go to one in Miami for my birthday every year. The London branches are a bit different from their counterparts in the US. The main difference being the pink sauce. In the UK it’s basically a mustard sauce.

The fried ice cream and friend banana desserts are fantastic.

The key to getting out of here alive (as in, with your wallet in tact) is to go for the 7 course combo menu. It’s around £20 and includes your choice of two mains, a salad, soup, california rolls, rice and some shrimp.

Booked this place for my mums birthday and it did not disappoint. It had a real good atmosphere to it and provided a entertainment in the chef cooking your food in front of you. Good value for money.

Anyone remember Select magazine? I was a fan. They had an issue dedicated to romance once, and Mike D of the Beastie Boys wrote an article for it, giving some suggestions on how a young man might make a good job of taking a young woman on a date.

In terms of the issue of choosing a venue for a date, Mike D extolled the virtues of restaurants with booths, as he felt that they encouraged intimacy. He also advised that the young man should take the young woman somewhere where they cook the food in front of you. His words were something like 'you might argue that this will give you a reason not to have to make painful small talk...AU CONTRAIRE...it will give you SOMETHING to talk about'.

His final gem was a recommendation that you should bring a folding bicycle with you on the date, so that on the way home you could push the cycle beside you as you walked your date home, which might create an air of intimacy. Intimacy clearly being the key here. I didn't quite get that one.

Anyway, Mike D's advice had a profund effect on me and when I met a young woman who I felt I needed to make a big impression on at our first date, I took her to Benihana.

Three years after that first date, I took her there again and proposed to her. But that's another story.

Benihana,

The highlight of this restaurant is that the chefs cook the food at the table on a large hot plate that every one sits around. Some chefs do amazing tricks, flinging bowls at people, flames the lot. This is obviously enjoyable to watch, but makes the seating a little awkward and we had a big party so we felt a bit spread out.

You have set menus and you can choose two of the following... prawns, chicken, lobster, salmon.

You are then presented with a miso soup, then four bits of sushi, the chef then cooks up onions, asparagus etc and your first choice, so lobster for me, which was very nice.

Then he fries the egg fried rice in front of you and you start to munch on that with a side salad, you then get your second option, salmon for me was good, huge portion!

The food was pleasant but the sushi wasn't my cup of tea, but because I eat it a lot I am picky and the mayonaise crab & cucumber rolls weren't anything special. It was however an interesting experience and you get stuffed up by the end of the meal!

Set meal is under £20 but the drinks are over priced but thats Soho for you. Try out for a casual night with friends!