Nakato Japanese Steakhouse & Sushi Bar

Awesome as always. Great Sushi

This is my favorite Japanese SteakHouse/​Sushi Bar all in one in Charlotte. Everything is awesome. The Hibachi grill food, Edamame, Seaweed Salad, misho soup are awesome. The Sushi Bar is the best. Dragon Roll, Eel and cucumber roll, Yellowtail w/​Scallion Roll, and The Nigiri Sushi (w/​rice) are awesome. Love the staff too!

Awesome sushi, haven’t tried the habachi. Volcano roll with the crab salad on top is my favorite!!!

Fine food and classic Japanese service, our shrimp, beef and calamari were all very good.
The «chef at the table» was as accomplished as I have ever seen.

Nakato was my first go to Japanse Steakhouse for hibachi and sushi when I first moved to the Charlotte area a few years ago.
Its only a great place to go if you are in the University area and really have nothing else better to do. The prices are too high for what you get and the food is very bland. The sushi is just okay, but if you are a sushi lover you’ve had better.
I would honestly recommend getting on the freeway and going to Tsunami which is off of the Concord Mills exit.

Once you’ve experienced the Benihana chain, it’s hard to make comparisons. Nakato is another Benihana replica where the chef slices and dices and sets onions ablaze in front of your onlooking eyes. Nakato probably has the worst imitation I’ve seen though.
If it’s your first time, you just might be in for a treat. If you get a bad chef though, the overall experience will leave you less than satisfied. And once you’ve been to one restaurant, you’ve pretty much done them all.
About two weeks ago, we ate here for a birthday party and we had enough people to fill a table. Typical with this style restaurant, you will be seated with strangers if the party isn’t large enough. This could be a bad thing if you’re socially awkward, but most people enjoy this part of the meal.
Service here is horrible. Our entire party wasn’t on time. We were missing two people and they refused to seat us. We had to wait an additional hour (No fault of theirs — Due to the nature of the meal, scheduling is to the T), but they rarely even gave us updates as to when would be seated and what was going on.
By the time we were seated, it took 30 minutes before we were even asked for our drinks. On top of that, once orders were taken, meal preparations must be proportioned and met. That took an additional 20 minutes so it was very frustrating having to wait. Granted, our entire party wasn’t on time, but If they would have just sat us initially they would have made it with plenty of time to spare.
Once the chef made it out and our dinner experience had set sail, you can imagine the suspense that had already built up. We were all expecting a grand display of ninja knife wielding, shrimp tail dicing, veggie flipping, but in comparison it was more like butter knifing a bread roll and veggie flops.
As the chef started dishing out portions (which someone didn’t proportion correctly), I noticed the seasonings and spices. It was all very basic; soy sauces, some teriyaki sauce variation, salt and pepper and their signature «shrimp sauce» which tasted horrid. I guess the sauces was a direct explanation as to why the final products also tasted so vile.
Everything was under seasoned. Fried rice teased like, plain rice. Their sauce that goes on everything had a strange odor and the steak I had was even contaminated by that odor/​taste. I hardly even touched my meal and about the only thing I ate was the shrimp and veggies.
A friend had forewarned me about Nakato not being good, but I thought to myself, «No way they can mess up a steak!» Oh little did I know.