Kintan Japanese BBQ Oxford Circus

The best spot for Japanese bbq or dare I say bbq generally in town. The prices can be a bit steep and be prepared to wait for a while to be seated if you don’t have a reservation, but it’s all honestly well worth it. Don’t sleep on the apps either, the crunchy rice with salmon is amazing and the smores for dessert is perfect.

This is such a nice place, food is gorgeous and on a Monday it has reduced prices.However, when we arrived we told the lady on the front desk we didn't have a reservation, she looked at her iPad, looked up, didn't say a thing and moved to someone else who came in after us. Not the best welcome. She came back to us after seating someone else and took us to our table. Nice table. Nice atmosphere. Slightly busy but not full. After waiting some time we got the attention of some waiting staff and ordered. Our sake arrived and I said to the server that our sake glasses weren't very clean, please could she replace them. The ones we got back weren't that much better. The food was very nice, we ordered a selection of meat and none meat. The prices were exceptionally reasonable, especially so with the Monday discounts.I would really recommend this restaurant but the service does need addressing unfortunately.

Great option of meats and vegs Amazing bundle they offer It’s basically always happy hour prices

great place and a great deal (happy hour) you can get the famous draught of Asahi here for £4 per pint or 16 per pitcher

Japanese bbq is all you need to know.

I’ve been to many Korean/Japanese BBQ joints in and around London and Kintan takes the award for worst service by a country mile. Of the last three times I’ve been, the service has been absolutely disgraceful which pains me to say given I’ve been coming to this spot for YEARS. If you’re sat at the very back of the restaurant, good luck with trying to get anyone’s attention to take your order, take your empty plates or get you another drink. We actually had to physically get up and find staff to cancel our drinks and get our bill. The waitress who was covering our section (we confirmed with her co-worker that it was in fact her section) couldn’t seem less interested in taking our order, bringing us extra plates, simple things like salt or taking more drink orders. Other tables in our section were also left piled high with dirty dishes long after diners had left. She was extremely rude when giving us dishes and even blamed us when she presented us the wrong order. The grills themselves have no temperature adjustment unlike like many other self-BBQ joints in London. Even at this one heat setting, it’s insufficient to actually get any colour on the meat as the heat is unevenly distributed. I have also had experiences where the grill isn’t even hot enough to cook sear a prawn, which when you have a large group of people becomes a tedious waiting game rather than an enjoyable experience. You also have to request the grills to be changed rather than the staff checking - This can be said for other similar restaurants too. The cooked food is of an average standard. The volcano salmon/tuna crispy rice has been a lot better in the past. Their sushi rice was overcooked and mushy. Edamame felt like it had just been left to defrost and not even blanched in boiling water. The marinades on the meat was good - all very much a mix of sweet soy/teriyaki style. We were never asked if we wanted marinated meat or not but given we were waiting 20-30 minutes between actually ordering and being bought raw meat, we’ll take what we’re given. I really thought I’d give this place a second or in this case, a third chance however after this I can firmly say I won’t be returning. I could forgive the poor service if the restaurant was at max capacity but it was perhaps at 60-70% capacity. Personally, I blame the poor management and lack of training of staff. On a previous visit, the manager took it upon himself to verbally berate our table after asking for the service charge to be removed. After he embarrassed himself, he reminded everyone on my table and around us (given he was shouting at this point) that he could have completely voided our charge but out of principle he was going to charge us. Very odd behaviour.

The service is good and food is fresh !

Overall a good experience as anticipated. Excellent seating arrangements downstairs separated from the outside, providing an intimate, warm and cosy environment. The service was okay, but compared to the Kintan Holborn Restaurant, there are noticeable differences which would make Holborn the preferred restaurant. Firstly, we are used to the service at Holborn consisting of our Beef Sukiyaki Bibimbap mixed for us at our table by the waiter. Whilst there’s nothing wrong with mixing my own it was just something that I couldn’t help to compare. Secondly, the music playlist kept glitching. This was very distracting and disturbed us for the majority of our stay, eventually the music playlist had changed which did improve the experience. Outside of that, everything else was fine. It was quite an efficient service with food and drinks coming out of the kitchen rapidly. It could be worth another visit, but I will visit Holborn again soon just to compare. I think it’s important to also mention that this is was excellent value for money. To summarise: Kintan Japanese BBQ is a place to go!!!