Zento Sushi in Southampton

I've been meaning to write this review for a while. My last visit to Zento was an utter disappointment! I have been going there regularly and never had any problems until the last time. They have a lunch deal where you get 20% off if you pay cash however on this particular day, we arrived in plenty of time for the lunch deal however, when we asked for the bill, they said that we couldn't get the 20% off because we asked for the bill 2 minutes too late! No where does it state that you have to get the bill before the lunch deal time is up, I assumed it was your order time not the time you asked for the bill. And if that is their policy then they should let customers know on their posters or verbally when you sit down. The wait staff should have asked if we wanted to bill before the cut off time. I was so annoyed and like I said, up until then I was a regular customer. However, after this terrible service experience, I will be taking my business elsewhere.

Staff are friendly and food served quickly. Recommend seafood ramen. Although the seafood is not fresh but with the price, can’t ask more. The soup seasoned very well.

The food here is amazing I definitely recommend me and my partner went here for dinner and we loved it the staff are really perlite and kind will definitely be returning in future :)

Very authentic food and atmosphere. Super friendly team, even offered to charge my phone for me while I had dinner as I mentioned it was running low. Highly recommend and not bad prices either.

Best place in the UK for Japanese food. Hot or cold every single dish is amazing and tasty. I have been going there since they opened. Best to pay in cash. Food is so tasty and perfectly prepared. I drive for 45 min to get there but it's so worth it. Enjoy 😋

Visited with friends, bright, cheerful, and friendly staff who were helpful. Menu was clear and insightful, making choosing easier for a first timer like me. Will be travelling to Southampton more just to eat here.

The hamachi salmon roe salad is an excellent appetizer. The fish is fresh and reasonably priced. The wagyu asparagus roll is super delicious, and the fried soft shell crab roll is also crunchy and delicious.

Spectacular typical Japanese dishes. However, they do not have dessert options. Bring cash to pay, you save 10% of consumption

Really satisfying food. Delicious!! But only one thing please don’t put sesame oil on Tonkotsu Ramen…

Very nice food. One of the best Japanese place that I have tried in the UK.

Best place to eat in Southampton. Everyone is so lovely!

I love mixed tempura bento or tempura Ramen. Food is plenty and the taste is authentic. Also the staff were lovely and considerate. Excellent service.

Have been here a couple of times now and both the times the experience have been really good. The service is top notch with a friendly approach. Food comes to you very soon and it is always fresh and delicious. We found the portion size to be quite large every time and it fill you up! Honestly a satisfactory experience given the cheaper price. Usually we spend only around £10 per person. (It’s cheaper to pay by cash btw) By now I have tried most of the items on their menu and have no complains. Will not hesitate to go there again or to recommend it to anyone!

Best restaurant, best salad dressing

Amazing food beautifully presented Attentive and courteous staff Fantastic sushi and also had sashimi salad which was delicious! Really nice decor We will be back for more !

Delightful place. Nice ambience. Great service. But most importantly Superb food.

Good price and good portion, I’d recommend soft shell crab and the teriyaki bento!

Superb! Filling and tasty food for such a generous price incredible! Definitely coming back. Kakuni ramen is so good highly recommended. I'd prefer noodles to be slightly thicker but can't complain for this price. Chicken gyozas are delicious!

Amazingly tasting food, halal friendly as well.

Translate text with your camera Great restaurant. Delicious and varied food. We had a great time. Recommends

Good place for a nice ramen. Not many ramen places around. And oh my god the sushi is amazing!

The food tastes good and there is a lot of choice. Warm service

I have been here a fair amount of times now and enjoyed my meal everytime. Its always delicious and fresh tasting. The staff are always kind and friendly. I also really like the setup/vibe and music of the resturante, will continue to go here and take others!

Went there twice over two years. Both times I got the spicy chicken ramen and some sushi, they were perfect both times.

Really friendly staff, Sean in particular was lovely and made our evening! Will definitely be back again! :) thank you

Me and my other half had a Lovely 🥰 dinner tonight at zento sushi Southampton very delicious food 🍱 ❤️ 5** from me and William!! Great atmosphere and great quality food always piping hot and very good pricing great staffing would highly recommend.

One of the best, if not the best place for sushi in Hampshire. A real hidden gem. Staff are friendly, the food is faultless and I left full!

Amazing food, lovely service from amazing and kind staff. Absolutely reccomend it to anyone!!

Amazing food - extensive menu with always something new to try

Lovely attentive staff. Wonderful food. The mix starter and two other dishes was more than enough for two people. The volcano roll and cha cha roll were so good and rich! Little bit loud but what do you expect in a small space

Quite disappointed as I booked the table and came just to see that they were shut for a few days, another couple was there too who booked and didn't know about it. There was no note on websites and Google says they were open, even today by note on door says today they are closed but Google maps say they are open today 😅 Please make sure at least you close the booking system when you are closed.

We had dinner for 2 people. The staff is friendly and the food came fast.

Had spicy tofu ramen and my wife had the chicken ramen. Warm sake was perfect. It was bitterly cold outside and we were glad we came in for a hot meal. Recommend it

Randomly stumble on this lovely little restaurant, food was excellent, staff friendly and service was exceptional 👌

Wonderful and amazing food experience, delicious and real food, superb service and excellent service. Definitely We will come back for another great experience.

Forgot to make any photos, we had two donburi and buta kakuni (pork). As I was expecting great food fantastic staff. Thank you for having us

Really good ramens and great service.

Amazing sushi and best place for tuna sashimi in the city! Definitely will visit again soon.

I ordered a takeaway from here and it was amazing. Can't wait to go there and try more.

Gorgeous sushi, tacoyaki & wakame great, just how I remember it from Japan, almost walked straight past this gem of a place, so glad we didn't. Great friendly service and nice atmosphere, highly reccomend.

Reasonable price, big portion and nice food.

Food was insane, Spicy Beef Ramen and Veggie Bento. My partner will NOT stop talking about it

Best food in the town. Always fresh and yummy 🤤 Highly recommend 👌👌👌

Very accommodating for a late lunch for 2 (+a sleeping baby). Food arrived fast and fresh. Delicious sashimi, melt in the mouth tempura (prawn + vegetable) and a lovely chef’s sushi collection. Will be visiting again when next in Southampton.

Clean restaurant, friendly and helpful staff. Big menu (with pictures), extremely fast delivery. Food was delicious. highly recommend it

Thee member of staff was basically unfriendly and sullen. We were overly polite and friendly to compensate for her lack. The 20% reduction if paying in cash was not applied but it was too late to ask. However, the food was delicious and well presented so we will be back for that alone. 😄

Food is excellent, great value and good portions. Service is second to none. Visited several times now and will be back again!

Really nice crab salad! A lot of meat and tasty too with the sweet salad sauce, match made in heaven! Nice atmosphere and tables and staff. Thanks so much will return

Excellent Japanese restaurant. We've visited a couple of times now and both experiences were great. Staff are friendly, service is very efficient, food is incredible and prices are fair. Even when the restaurant is busy the food comes out of the kitchen at a remarkable pace. My wife now bribes me with a meal here to get me to visit IKEA. It works.

Very good food as always been there so many times !!

I ordered sashimi and tempura bento. It was very delicious, and the portion was really big. Sashimi was really fresh and tasty! Great value for money.

First time I've eaten at Zento, usually just get takeaway. It's definitely better fresh, great selection too

Good food and reasonable price. Lovely staff members

Very good food. I had seafood nanban yaki udon and it was amazing!

OMG i love this sushi 🍣 🍱 Wow everything is so delicious

Nice quiet taste quick good price lovely 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

Nice izakaya style vibes! The food came really quick and they were delicious. Highly recommended for Japanese food. The price is also affordable. The location is also very convenient to travel to and is near other shopping malls and the main street.

Excellent sushi. Friendly staff. The food came out hot and quick. Can't wait to go back.

Excellent Japanese addition to Southampton. Great service and food. Sushi preperation is outstanding. Discount if you're paying cash.

We ordered unagi don, salmon set, and tenbuya udon. Salmon sushi was great! Unagi don had too much favouring , which I don’t like. And tenbuya don was soso. Service was great and pretty crowded so better book before.

I didn’t make a reservation as it was lunch but my friend and I only waited for 5mins before being seated. Service and staff were great and looked after us quite well. We ordered vegetable tempura , tonkotsu ramen, unagi don, mushroom skewers and sushi to share with a bottle of plum wine. This was plenty for two people. Highly recommended.

Best Japanese restaurant in Southampton♥️ Red Dragon roll and nigiri are soooo nice！

A massive choice of food!!!! 😁😁😄 Especially the Karashi ramen, I was really impressed about the size of that portion, good taste, I loved the pieces of vegs and seafood! But the gyoza and the sushi was the specialty of the house! Highly recommended.

This is one of my favourite Japanese restaurants in Southampton. I would recommend to mainly have the rolls here, such as the dragon roll. The rest is also perfectly fine, Best value compare with similar levels. The atmosphere in the restaurant is great and I like the decor.

Great Japanese restaurant with a good menu selection. The food all tasted pretty good and relatively genuine for a reasonable price.

Celebrating Mother’s Day in advance… Very good food at reasonable prices .. good service even though they are very busy. Spend around £70 for 2 adults and a toddler (of course with alcohols 😜)

Solid sushi restaurant in the Southampton area. The fish quality in general was pretty good and the roll was also pretty decent. I got an Ramen and few kind of sashimi, I think it was pretty fairly priced compared to other places in Southampton.

Nice Japanese restaurant in Southampton. Quite busy during the dinner time. We visited on Saturday evening around 6pm. Offering Japanese Bento, sushi, ramen, etc., various choices available. We had the bento, one with salmon teriyaki and the tempura, the other with teriyaki chicken and sashimi. All tasted delicious!! Definitely will visit again to try the sushi!

Popped in on my own a few months back. The food was absolutely delicious and superb value for money. The service was also excellent. Will definitely be back!

Very attentive staff. Great food and authentic Japanese food. Ramen and sushi rolls are superb.

Been to Zento gazillion times and the food is always amazing! I pretty much tried everything on the menu and nothing disappoints! The only downside is when I order Green Tea, I have to keep asking the friendly waiters/waitress for refills which is free, but can be a little hassle. Best to provide a teapot to avoid the inconvenience. The service is good, staff members is always nice and helpful.

This is the first time I've tried Zento Sushi and I was not disappointed! The food is authentic Japanese with a hint of Western fusion in some dishes. I had the Tonkatsu Ramen, Takoyaki and Prawn Tempura sushi and they were all incredible, but I think my favourite was the sushi. My friend had the Duck Sushi, Gyozas and Edamame and she absolutely loved them (her first time eating proper restaurant sushi) I can highly recommend Zento Sushi 🍣

The sushi is delicious, also the katsu and ramen is very recommended here. The place is cozy.

A superb Japanese restaurant with loads of dishes to choose from. The food was great!

Food was warm and tasty it will get your tastebuds and won't cost much on the pocket as well

The most cheap skate sushi restaurant I’ve ever been to with the additional benefit of not using fresh ingredients and smallest portion of sashimi I’ve ever seen, sashimi prawn which was the size of like a toothpick and other sashimi equivalent to 8 grain of rice. This total costed me £40-£45, feel free to go and feel their love of cheap skate, definitely recommend if you need a new kind of experience.

Less than one star ! This place is not for tourists. A place where they deny you Wi-Fi is an unfriendly place. I have traveled the world and it is the first time that I feel dissatisfied with a restaurant to end leaving a bad review, not even in 3rd world restaurants are so unfriendly. How unpleasant the persuasion for you to pay with cash, they charge you 10% of the service that they don't even offer you. I only go back to restaurants where I feel like a queen. Regarding the food In don’t know how was it because I was already unhappy with the service. I own a successful business I treat my clients like kings . Never again to this place !

The place to go for sushi in Southampton. Fresh sushimi, yummy rolls. The menu is varied and consistently good. Bento boxes are a really good deal. Bring cash to save on your final bill. Dine in quality is better than take out.

Delicious and great value for money! recommend!

Great Service, tasty food, delicious plum wine

I had prawn tempura temaki, kitsune udon, and inari nigiri, which were absolutely divine. Will endeavour to come here more often because the food is that good.

Food and service was amazing, thank you so much. 💯 If you like to pay less, pay with cash - they will apply a coupon on the top of your bill . However one thing that was distracting us all night is those little flies, the rest was lovely. Good luck and keep going! 👌

Don’t try Nigiri(Sushi) The rice is very cold and hard and scattered. Ramen was good. Just try Ramen here.

One of the best Japanese in the town, can't fault it, a it on pricey side but was verry tasty and good atmosphere, was able to make up table for 8 people super pleasent!!! Highly recommended!!

Offended discount if paid in cash yet due to not having any got given the higher bill despite being able to literally go to a cash point. While the food was okay it was overpriced for what it was. I'd avoid this place if you're looking for a better level of service.

Best sashimi I ever ate! The sushi is high quality.

Got deliveroo gift coupon from somewhere, so decided to try this sushi with wifey! Love the ramen 🍜 especially a bit spicy of the tempura prawn ones. Love the crab hand roll the most! Overall good…Would try other food again next time…

Great selection of food, helpful staff and not too busy even with a last minute booking for a big table

Amazing, lovely dinner. Would recommend to anyone!

Food was average - some items too salty others too bland. Worst part is they are sneaky about their prices. BEWARE!!! This is also reflected in many other customer reviews. Their food menu says 10% is added as service charge. Per UK law, the service charge is not mandatory and when I enquired, they said if we pay by cash the service charge will be taken off. This was dodgy in itself as it seems THEY ARE TRYING TO AVOID TAX by forcing customers to pay cash. But we agreed as we didn’t want to fuss. When we went to pay final bill however, the SUM OF THE BILL WAS MORE THAN TOTAL OF INDIVIDUAL ITEMS despite them taking the service charge off!! When questioned, they said that it’s because we ordered drinks. No other explanation offered. Their drinks menu does not mention any additional/ optional charge. I asked why should I pay more than the sum total of my items ordered. They said their “SYSTEM MAKES IT DIFFICULT TO EXPLAIN” ! What the h*ll !!! I put my foot down as said I will not pay anything on top of the total of their menu prices. It was not about the money but a matter of principle for me! This SHADY PRACTICE OF OVERCHARGING MONEY should not be allowed. I am going to report it and hope they come to their senses. This is UK after all, not a third world country! So they cannot use such dodgy practices with their customers!

Excellent food and friendly staff. I had spring rolls and prawn curry, all beautifully presented and cooked. Currently they're running a discount for cash at lunch. I don't know how long the discounts will run for.

While we were still discussing what to eat, the waiter came to ask us if we had chosen. He didn’t even have water. How dare he charge us a service fee? The food was so-so. I ordered 70 pounds without paying attention. The experience was terrible. At the same price, you can go to a good Western restaurant and they won't rush you to order. Finally, we were told that we can pay in cash. If Alipay’s exchange rate is 1:9, it’s a 10% discount, and I’ll give you 1% more for free? None of the Chinese restaurants in London are this big.

Friendly staff, nice atmosphere. We had a late reservation and they would close at 22:00 my mum mentioned how she didn’t liked the fact that some of us were finishing our meals and they were bringing the bill, rushing us to make the payment and get out, it isn’t nice. We were still very reasonable, and it wasn’t that late, having also worked in the hospitality industry we completely understand that they wanted to finish and go home but we wouldn’t have been inconsiderate enough to stay longer than we needed to and rushing us to choke on our food and get out wasn’t necessary. Other than that food was great, very tasty 😁

My favorite thick cut salmon belly

One of the best ramens I've had in Southampton!

Very delicious and the serving was extreme fast. We are very sastified with our ordering and we will be back more often! Highly recommend as well

We ordered online. Long time waiting for delivery, but worth it! Delicious and fresh suhi. Recommended! Especially sexy lady roll and rock&roll!

Amazing food, especially the ramen. Easily adapted for allergies or dietary changes. Lovely friendly staff. The only downside was the dirty bathroom floors.

Enjoyed the food, no complaints there but check your bill. I was offered 10% discount for cash, what they had done in fact was add a service charge and discounted some of that. The numbers didn't add up to even 10%. I told the waitress that I am paying by card and not paying their service charge so take it off my bill. The revised bill came out slightly less than the discount I had been offered, very strange till system they have there. To be honest the service wasn't that great so I wasn't happy paying extra for that anyway.

Interior is gorgeous, service is quiet but polite and quick. Food is brilliant, better ramen then any restaurants nearby for a slightly higher or even lower cost. £10.50 for a bowl of ramen is generous