Review Basho - St. John's

Had seafood & vegetable tempura, seasonal nigiri & sushi assortment, Spanish wine and blueberry mojito at Basho. Everything was quite nice, particularly nigiri and the blueberry mojito. Their sushi rolls were good but I have had better at another restaurant in the Avalon area. A friend who had surf n’ turf & pan seared seasonal white fish confirmed that they were both great. (They looked great too). A good thing about Basho is that you can get gluten free appetisers, mains and desserts. Ambiance of the restaurant is amiable and the staff is not bad either.

Our first time at Basho was quite good! The food there is our new favorite in St. John's. We built up an appetite before we arrived specifically because we were very hyped to try a variety of things. We had the tuna tartar, the spicy scallop roll, the Nobu scallop and asparagus dishes to start. Then, we had rack of lamb and the dry aged sirloin as mains. Each item was fantastic in their own way. Of the appetizers, I'll give a specific shout out to the Nobu scallop and asparagus dish - the sauce was incredible and the scallops perfectly cooked. For our mains, the steak was a perfect medium rare and the prosciutto sauce that it was topped with was an amazing addition. Truffle fries - what else is there to say about that? Lamb was also great, I was surprised that my favorite part of the lamb dish ended up bring the bed of ratatouille - it had such a unique flavor to it! In all, the food was fantastic. The only reason this rating is not a 5 star is because service was a bit slow. Admittedly, it was a very busy Victoria day weekend so I understand. We will be back for sure! I'll order only sushi next time because the one roll we ordered this time was so fantastic.

Food was delicious. The dessert did not disappoint. Only downfall is it was so cold inside. My spouse had to wear his jacket the entire meal.

Basho used to be one of my places in town, and I was so excited to return there after they reopened. Although the sushi was still delicious, authentic, and just as I remembered, the service really needs work and soured our entire experience. We originally made a reservation for 2, and called a couple days prior to change it to 4. We spoke with a hostess who managed to make it work - we did not just leave a message and show up assuming it would work out, but had verbal confirmation. When we showed up, they insisted it was only for 2 people and that we were lying, must have just left a message, and didn’t actually speak with anyone. There were two people out front and both kept making rude remarks to each other about how awful it was for us to just show up. They then figured out that the reservation was changed to 4 people but one of them hadn’t marked it down. Service was very slow and not very warm or attentive. They didn’t seem to care about us or anyone else there, and it truly felt like everyone hated their job. The food took forever - at least when it finally came out, our sushi was good but another friend got a steak and it was subpar. At the end, they made a mistake with the bills (2 for the table) and put the wrong items on it. That would normally be forgivable if it wasn’t for the fact that the experience was poor from beginning to end. I can only recommend Basho for its sushi - it’s still delicious and probably the only reason they are still running. The reservation system needs to be modernized (online booking, multiple phone lines, not using a paper and pen book which is prone to error and issues), the service could be better, and in general they shouldn’t hire anyone who will make rude or snarky remarks in front of their patrons.

We waited more than an hour for the food to come out and were reassured 30 minutes in that we would be served “very soon”. This reassurance came after the table next to us ended up walking out. Would not recommend unless you like sitting in a very dim room waiting for an hour. We also spotted a mouse in the dining area. The food was decent for the price and we were given a free dessert to compensate for the wait time.

Called basho for a reservation Friday evening and nothing was available. I was offered a call back for a cancellation which I happily accepted for 3 people. We did get a call for 7 and went. Had several appetizers, all delicious. Our main course was beef tenderloin, well done, rare and med rare. Our steaks came and my sister were given wrong steak because the bartender was providing server responsibility and could not see what was what in the lightening. The unfortunate part is my sister had no fork to eat her meal until I had mine finished to give her my fork, it was at this time it was realized it was a well done steak instead of the rare. My other sister who thought she wanted well done found out she loved rare. We did not see our bartender server for the entire main meal. Had to leave table and go downstairs to ask for our bill. Also , wine was requested but not delivered. I just thought, I need to check my bill to see if I was charged for it. Not happy with service and disappointed I cancelled the reservation with magnum and stein to accept basho cancellation. Poor service for $300!

Fantastic dinner out! My partner’s family is half Japanese, and even he was impressed! We had the scallops, spicy salmon roll, steak frites, and cod meal. Would definitely recommend each of them. The portions were generous, well seasoned, and creative. You may not think of Japanese cuisine for a vacation meal in Nfld, but Basho definitely is a standout!

I wish I could give more stars for the food we did have but the service my girlfriend and I got was poor, unwelcoming and overall had a server projecting her bad night on us. If you are looking to go to Basho, may be worth rethinking and picking one of the other fantastic restaurants in downtown St. John's that values their guests. Trying to get get a reservation to begin with was difficult and should've been my first sign to try somewhere else but went along with it and 6+ calls and leaving a message that wasn't answered, we got a reservation for 8pm. Walking into the restaurant it started off with a pretty short conversation with a woman who ended up being our server that evening. I don't know if she was having a bad night but we got the brunt of it as she was anything but welcoming and her attitude made it clear she was not happy to see us. We got drinks which were fine, ordered the scallops, striploin and the Toby Plate. We were then told they were completely out of Sushi/sashimi to then have the table next to us, who were sat and ordered after us have what I can only assume was the Toby plate (a large chef's plate of sushi/sashimi/nigiri) show up at their table 45 minutes later. Interesting. Halfway through the steak we decided to try and order another main course as we were both still hungry, to which we were told the stoves are off and the kitchen is closed. The server then follows that up with "you two are having some bad luck tonight".... not great. She offered us a dessert on the house which was nice but it took us getting clearly frustrated with the evening for her to remotely care and start to change her attitude. Judging by the lack of interaction with any of the previous reviews and no contact email, I'd imagine this may fall on deaf ears. Both my girlfriend and I are in the service industry and understand off nights, but the lack of care and concern as though we were doing a disservice for simply coming in to dine was extremely frustrating and disappointing.