Well the simple answer would be to ask the guests they seated whether they were the couple that called ahead and explain to them that they were holding those seats for x minutes. The woman who seated them was the same woman who talked to us on the phone.
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That’s a real bummer, I’ve always had great service when I’m there. You should reach out and give them a heads up, I would expect them to be open to feedback to improve their process and hopefully make things right for you. Especially as it is completely a failure on their side of the process. I’m sure it was an honest mistake on the part of the host, which happens, but how they handled it and reducing the chance of that happening in the future is something within their control.
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That’s good feedback I’ll shoot them an email.
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Hopefully they did talk about it later, even if in the moment it seemed like no one cared. Later that night they coulda been like yeah we messed that up.
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The two times I’ve been there for dinner, I always thought the service was awkward. Nothing egregious, just not seamless. I just excused it as possibly a cultural thing (and I’m Taiwanese).
Food is stellar though, and that’s always the main thing to me, but for Michelin standards, I think service is a main reason why it is stuck at one star.
I have had the opposite experience. The service was great and had excellent and detailed explanations of both the wine pairing and non-alcoholic beverage pairings during the dinner.
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i don’t quite understand this, do you think they have an asian service profile?
I’m not too sure what you mean by Asian service profile; it was just awkward. By cultural, I mean that the level of precision perhaps is not to be expected in traditional “Chinese” restaurants, where even though you could be having a very fancy banquet, the type of service is different from “fine dining” standards of a Michelin starred restaurant. Certainly, the fine Japanese restaurants have the service aspect dialed in, so I wouldn’t label it all Asian.
For instance, we had a few courses where dishes would be dropped off without an explanation and then someone would come over after a delay to describe it. Wines not poured until well after the course was presented. Unfinished drinks taken off the table without asking. Things like that. Again, nothing that would ruin the meal, but noticeable.
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I felt it was too try hard imo. Straight out of “the menu”. All they were missing was the clap of the hands.
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I’ve had a couple flawless service meals as well as a couple somewhat awkward service meals. I will say that Austin is always awesome and happily answers my questions about his cocktails. Ryan is also always helpful navigating the wine list and has turned me on to some real gems.
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We have been to Kato many times, and always found the service to be outstanding.
Ryan, their wine director, is a level above and beyond (and not because we order expensive wines because we don’t).
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Service was a little shaky the first time wr went right after they reopened in the row. But we’ve been back twice recently and it is on par with SF and NYC restaurant service imo. I’ve always said that LA has great food, but shitty restaurants because service is so bad most places.
And like other people are saying here, beverage service might be the best in town.
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Service is warm and genuine but still professional. Maybe its not white table cloth and an army of servers in suits, but who wants that anymore!? They care about all the small details. Nicky (one of the owners) alwys calls personally and confirms the reservations and is also the person to greet you at the door.
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+1
And sometimes the conversation and level of involvement is what you make it. If you engage with them, they’ll engage more with you. I think they have a great read on their diners.
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i’m crying into my taiwanese flag right now
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Cooking Issues recently had Kato bartender Han Suk Cho on the show back in October. I really liked how technical they got talking about Kato’s non-alcoholic bar program, especially the use of glycerin for texture (which is mentioned in the Punch article) as well as for non-alcoholic flavor extraction.
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