The best restaurants serving Japanese food in Norbiton Kingston upon Thames London

Review written on 7 October 2021: I have been a customer of AtariYa in Kingston for many years ever since the shop originally opened, but my visit yesterday with a friend was most disappointing. In fact, we were so disgusted that we walked out. My friend and I were both wearing masks. I have a Japanese family and I have lived, worked and travelled widely in Japan for over 45 years and have friends who run top quality sushi restaurants in Tokyo and Narita so I do know proper Japanese food. My first disappointment was the lack of sushi Bento boxes. Previously, there has always been a really good selection of excellent quality all freshly made but on this visit there was very little on display and all looking rather dull. Apart from the lack of stock, possibly caused by the present worldwide delivery problems, I was disappointed to see items which appeared to be Japanese but were not actually made in Japan. That is extremely misleading. Inspection of some of the nori seaweed packets showed that they were produced in China, similarly, some items in the freezer which were made in Vietnam. I asked the male fishmonger (not Japanese) behind the sashimi counter about this but got no answer. Of course it is not impossible to produce good quality food which is not made in its original country but I go to a Japanese food shop to buy genuine Japanese food, not food produced somewhere else. I do not eat anything from China because I do not trust their production methods due to at least one scandal in Japan involving the use of pesticides on imported Chinese products. At the sashimi fish counter at the rear of the shop there seemed to be a much smaller selection than there used to be. I ask the male fishmonger, in Japanese, for a particular fish but he didn't understand me so I repeated just the name of the fish (shime saba) and he did point to the correct fish. However, although he was wearing a mask, it was pulled down, thus exposing his nostrils. A female staff member then appeared, also wearing a mask but also not covering her nose. I asked both of them why their masks were not correctly positioned but they just smiled (I don't know why) and pulled the masks up to cover their noses but it was too late. I told them that it was disgusting to be breathing all over raw fish while the Covid pandemic is still continuing but there was no proper reply from either. These two staff members were not Japanese and the very nice Japanese gentleman who has always previously run the fish counter was not present. Two English men then came in and looked at the sushi bento items but neither was wearing a mask even while leaning over the products. The products were in plastic boxes but that is not the point. It is absolutely unimaginable that any Japanese person, either customer or staff, would lean over any food, particularly raw food, in a virus pandemic without wearing a proper mask. In Japan, staff who are preparing food in public view normally wear masks, gloves, hats and a proper uniform but, of course, this is England. I absolutely cannot imagine what Japanese people think of such low standards. I complained once before about the poor attitude of an English staff member in this shop and received an apology from AtariYa. Obviously, poor hygiene is even more important so I will be writing again to the AtariYa management. It is very important that shops purporting to be Japanese do actually give a proper good impression of their products. Very few non-Japanese people have any idea what real Japanese food is and what I saw in the shop yesterday was simply not acceptable. Other reviewers on this site have made similar criticisms. I will never go to this shop again. Nor will my friends.