Bentoya

i feel a bit sad to do this, but after my last visit to Bentoya i couldn’t leave a 5 star rating. i’d suggested the place when my my friends and i were needing a restaurant for dinner. having been multiple times before my response was bentoya is great let’s go there! sadly it did not live up to such greatness…
first off we’d booked a table for 8pm, we didn’t get a table until 20 minutes after this time. and no apologies when we walked in or an acknowledge that we were still waiting a good ten minutes after arrival. second when we finally sat down it took over 15 minutes to flag someone down to take our order. the table next to us were sat down and got drinks almost right away so not sure why our table was ignored. although service remained poor throughout our whole visit where we actually questioned just getting up and leaving when it seemed next to impossible to get someone’s attention to get our bill.
after ordering we did receive some food fairly quickly, but having all ordered different things one friend’s dishes came out before most of the rest of ours and the bento boxes came out almost half an hour after ordering so one friend was sat watching us eat after having all her dishes first thing. i know that dishes come out as they’re ready but timing could have been a bit better.
lastly and possibly the saddest part forcing me to drop two stars was that the quality of the food was not very good. before anything i had was very tasty and fresh and really enjoyable. this time food seemed to lack freshness, my spicy tuna roll had raw chopped chillis in it instead of the usual spicy sauce. the tuna nigri in my bento box was a bit on the chewy side to the point i questioned its freshness and didn’t eat it. the miso aubergine felt a bit underdone and tasteless although the mixed tempura was actually quite good.
so really dissapointed in Bentoya and may actually avoid coming here in the future due to this poor service and less than top notch food.

Hmmm… the place was packed which I always see as a good sign but I’m just not sure about this place. Some have mentioned that it rivals Kanpai but I genuinely can’t see it…
We’d booked a table for 3 at 8. Granted I was 20 minutes early so the table wasn’t ready yet so I had to wait outside until it was. To be fair to one of the women they did come outside at about 8pm and ask if I wanted to wait inside in a recently vacated seat. Our table wasn’t ready for another 10 – 15 minutes after that and when we were seated it took another 20 minutes to have our order taken. IT’S BYOB! Doh! By the point that I realised I really couldn’t be bothered to hop over to the Costcutter across the road so I settled for some lovely Green tea.
The food arrived in drips and drabs which was a little frustrating as it was all mostly mine and the Bento boxes arrived right at the end so it was completely out of sync.
I enjoyed some elements of the food… the Dragon Roll was excellent and I enjoyed the Miso Aubergine but have had better (at Kanpai.). My black cod was greasy and as it was the first thing that arrived it left me with a heavy feeling for the rest of the meal. It was an awful place to go eat but I’ve had better elsewhere in town. I can’t see myself coming back…
Be prepared to put your silly hat on in order to get the attention of the staff!

Great value and never had any issues with the quality of the sashimi/​sushi. Portion sizes are generous and they’re bento boxes are a real deal. Plus BYOB. Service can be a bit haphazard, but always courteous, as the place is small and can really fill up but I think this just adds to it’s charm. The kitchen is right in the heart of the restaurant which isn’t to everyone’s taste but gives it a real luxury street stall feel. One of my regular go to any time of the week haunts when I need some clean comfort food.

Loved Bentoya! Definitely looking forward to my next visit. Busy wee place too so I’d advise booking. We had booked for 5.30 as we had theatre tickets and I was glad we did. It is small — about 4 – 5 tables at the front and then about another 3 – 4 out the back.
Being gluten free I knew there was some stuff off limits but I managed to get some tasty sushi here. The maki and california rolls were delicious and pretty filling
and lovely and fresh. The rest of the gang had things like the bento box (about £8 and a good dinner option) or a selection of various things from across the menu. Everything looked so tempting.
Bentoya is byob — corkage is £2 which is also good value compared to some other places and there is a Coop and Sainsbury on/​just off Lothian Road for grabbing your wine.
I hope to go back soon :-)

Lovely little sushi place in the Burgh that seems to be constantly full. Seriously — arrived at 7pm on a Monday night and it was rammed. Monday night! Jeez Edinburgh you know how to live — Dublin would be sitting at home with it’s takeaway nursing a hangover, but not you Edinburgh, not you!
Anyway I’ve been here twice and it’s always been great. It’s by no means the best sushi I’ve ever had, but it’s of a good standard and really excellent value. My favourite thing both times has been the grilled aubergine. Mother of $&%£ it’s gorgeous. It has honey or something brushed along the top and is chargrilled. So so soooo good.
The service can be a bit hurried but overall they’re quite nice in here and you never feel neglected.
To sum up, good food, cosy atmosphere, fast service and cheap prices. Win win.

Edinburgh is a fantastic place to eat out but it is definitely lacking in amazing sushi places so we were very eager to try Bentoya.
We arrived early Friday evening without a reservation. They gave a seat at the bar stools which was fine for us. Being busy is always a good sign in a restaurant! The staff are very friendly and they efficiently took our order. With the reasonable prices we didn’t feel too guilty ordering the extra plate of sashimi. I’m getting a little fed up with the the prices in Edinburgh’s sushi restaurants and me and David can pack a fair few rolls away!
The food arrived quickly and was beautifully presented. For starters we shared the mixed sashimi and the salt and pepper squid. Both were delicious, especially the squid! David went for one of the Bento boxes and I had the seafood udon soup. Dave’s box came featured a variety of delicacies. They were very generous with the seafood in my soup but the broth could have packed a bit more of a punch.
I’m not totally convinced on this place just yet but I am definitely going to pay it another visit.
Cheers, Amy

Bentoya is a little Japanese restaurant close to Usher Hall with cash only and no licence to sell alcohol, therefore guests are welcome to bring their own. The place is busy, so it is highly recommended to book in advance.
We booked a table for two on a Saturday night but still had to wait for some time to get seated. We brought a bottle of wine with us and the cork fee was only 2 pounds.
The food is nice, the menu offers typical starters and sushi sets served with miso soup. Overall it is a good value for money with good customer service — the waitress quickly comes over to pour you some more soy sauce once she sees that you start to run out.

Bentoya makes some pretty awesome bento boxes and this really is a 3.5 star review rather than a 3. I can highly recommend the food, and I get envious stares when I kart a takeout back to the office. Only reason for 3 starts is that the bento box comes with a meat gyoza — no option unless requested. Once surprised, lesson learned the second time around.

I’m upping Bentoya to 4 stars after my most recent visit. Which was much improved.
Staff were just as commendable as on my first visit. Very friendly, attentive and super efficient.
I ordered the Miso soup, Kimchi, Eel Nigiri and the 3 Kinds of Sashimi (10 pieces, I went for Tuna, Salmon and Scallop) Dishes were served super fast and all delicious. The Kimchi was fresh, crunchy and in a mild, spicy sauce (could have been a tad spicier). I even shamelessly drank the sauce after finishing. The Eel was really good, perfectly cooked. Succulent white, flaky flesh. Mildly fatty, crispy skin and coated in a gorgeous sweet and earthy sauce. The Sashimi was just as awesome. The Salmon was very fresh and creamy. The Tuna equally as fresh and almost melt-​in-​the-​mouth good. The Scallop was, again, fresh. Sweet, firm and white without any hint of that ‘out in the open a little too long’ taste that Scallops easily acquire.
I’m so glad I went back and am able to update my review. With my meal coming in at less than £20 Bentoya offers the best value for money Japanese food in town. Hands down.

Quite cheap for the Edinburgh sushi scene
£7.90 for a vegetarian dinner bento just off Lothian road! It is supposed to come with vegetable tempura, gyozas, avocado sushi, rice and miso soup but I swapped the gyoza for cucumber sushi (didn’t want too much fried food). I found the prices quite honest here, and hopefully this place will help lower the price bar for sushi in Edinburgh, as it’s usually quite overpriced.
Taste-​wise, not the best but reflects the price.
There are Chinese and Japanese options on the menu. Service is reasonably fast.

When the Unilocal UK team get together there are a few things guaranteed… 1) Fun, 2) Loud chats and 3) Sushi. We’re a team of fish fanatics it seems and we tend to go out together to get ourselves some tasty Japanese eats whenever we can.
For the latest instalment of team UK fun, we headed to Bentoya for lunch. I actually really liked the décor of this place! It wasn’t super sophisticated, but I really liked the star ceiling and the cute décor touches around the place.
Their Bento box lunch deal is AMAZING! £7.50 for Miso and a choice of Bento which included a couple of starters. I had a Sashimi Bento, but ordered a cheeky helping of chicken Gyoza to start (which, to be fair, I hadn’t of needed to). The Gyoza were excellent. Flavourful, soft and tasty — I am a sucker for Dim Sum and these were top rate!
The fish used for the Sashimi was clearly very good quality and was fresh and delicious. It came with the aforementioned Miso (which was nice) and a gyoza dumpling, as well as some other bits and pieces. My only complaint was that as everything is made to order — it can be a little slow to get the food, but the quality was excellent.
I would recommend a trip to these guys for lunch, but maybe not if you’re in a hurry. I would definitely check them out for dinner too as their prices were very affordable, but the quality was above and beyond.

We were a group of 8 on a busy night, so we did have the food delay problems that other reviewers mention, but even that isn’t going to sway me from giving Bentoya five stars. The high quality of the food paired with the incredibly reasonable prices make this a stand-​out sushi restaurant by Edinburgh standards. I am already looking forward to my next visit.

Yum, yum, yum! This was super impressive sushi — so good in fact that it was well worth the fairly long wait at lunch time (their kitchen is small and our table of 10 all got our food at different stages 40 mins after ordering!)
Spicy tuna rolls were excellent, as was the California roll and the volcano ones with some tempura would be highly recommended by myself. The real extra bonus of this place was that it wasn’t just the taste that was amazing — the textures and appearance of each dish were also very special, really well thought out and an added delight on top of the flavours on offer.
Very friendly staff and some of the best sushi I’ve had in the UK, make sure you check it out (good value prices too)

Bentoya is the newest sushi place in Edinburgh, and rivals Kanpai as my favourite in the city. Whilst the décor may not be as swish as Kanpai, the sushi is cheaper but read that as more affordable, and the quality of the sushi is still just as good, if not better.
I’ve had many of the rolls and can highly recommend the rainbow roll, volcano roll for its delicious spicy sauce, the dumplings are nice, the seaweed salad is intense and very seaweedy (I guess that makes sense), I’ve not had a thing here I didn’t like. The staff are also really friendly, and recognise my friend with a warm smile, as she’s a regular.
They seemed really busy at lunch time, with a lot of office folk wanting to stop in for their takeaway lunch. I have been several times at dinner with 2 friends and the food service was fine. A large group of 10 for lunch on a Tuesday did mean our food came out 40 minutes staggered across the table, and given that I was one of the last to receive my meal, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I’d hoped. But they’ve a small kitchen. I think perhaps if they’d warned us that food would come staggered, and to order as two seperate tables expecting 30 minute gap between would have helped. But it does show all the sushi is made fresh.
One of my new favourite no-​fuss sushi places in the city.

Ja, ich habe in Edinburgh die Woche über so gut gegessen, dass ich gar nicht anders kann, als Sternchen regnen zu lassen. Im Bentoya sind wir zur Mittagszeit gelandet, etwas Leichtes sollte es sein, bevor es abends zu unserem fancy Dinner im Castle Terrace ging. Bei unserer Gruppengröße von knapp 10 Personen war eine Reservierung nötig, der Laden besteht sonst eher aus kleineren Tischen für 2 – 3 Personen.
Leider war der Service trotz Vorankündigung unserem Ansturm und dem üblichen Mittagsgeschäft nicht ganz gewachsen. Die Speisen kamen in sehr unregelmäßigen Abständen. Während einige schon ihr komplettes Menü vor sich hatten und auch schon angefangen hatten, mussten andere sehr lange auf überhaupt etwas zu essen warten. Gut, dass wir einige Portionen Edamame vorweg bestellt hatten, sonst hätten einige echt lange «auf dem Trockenen gesessen». Ich kann mir aber gut vorstellen, dass der Service bei weniger Andrang den Laden auch besser im Griff hat.
Dafür konnten die Gerichte auf ganzer Linie überzeugen, in meinen Augen die Hauptsache. Ich hatte eine Rainbowroll bestellt, die wirklich ganz toll war. Sehr zarter und frischer Fisch, der auf der Zunge zergehen konnte. Ein wirklicher Hingucker war auch die Volcano Roll am Nebentisch. Geschmacklich top, habe ich mir sagen lassen. Für wenig Geld gibt es auch eine Bentobox mit Suppe, Salat und Starter — nur knapp 8 Pfund. Ein gutes Preis-​Leistungsverhältnis.
Alles in allem hat mich das Bentoya doch überzeugt, die Speisen (mit Ausnahme des Wakame-​Salats) waren alle top zubereitet und haben wirklich klasse geschmeckt. Nach meinen vergangenen Sushi-​Reinfällen eine wahre Wohltat. Trotz verpeiltem Service definitiv eine Empfehlung!

Bentoya is definitely in the running as one of the top sushi places in Edinburgh. But if you’re running late it might not be your best bet — yet.
We snuck in here on Tuesday afternoon with a large party of ten for lunch. First and foremost, the prices made me gleeful. I love some of the other sushi haunts in town, but folks, I can pack away sushi like no one’s business and my extreme sashimi habit has proven to be expensive while in Edinburgh. At Bentoya, it’s still a dent in the wallet but at least it doesn’t leave a hole.
Glasgow’s own Briony C was in town and so, as good Unilocalers do, we went for a whack of share plates: mixed sashimi, the 10 piece sushi platter, seaweed salad and agadashi tofu with a few pieces of unagi to round things off (I told you… appetites.)
I can definitely say, it’s some of the best sushi i’ve had since moving to Scotland. The sashimi was fresh, they’ve got some interesting rolls on the menu and the unagi was well done. I would pass on the agadashi tofu (a little undercooked) and the seaweed salad next time around but all in all, I was a happy sashimi camper.
So why am I not wearing the five star bells?
Well, though our food hit the table in a timely manner, the rest of our dining partners’ did not. I’d like to think they inherently picked out the two local gals to feed first, but even universal karma can only take one so far. By the time we were done eating, half of our table had yet to receive their meals. They came out eventually, but as our fellow diners wolfed down their food (we were now running late), the rest of us twiddled our thumbs and poked through our empty plates.
There’s obviously some timing kinks to work out here and I suppose that’s to be expected with a new establishment but if you’re visiting with a large party, take this as a word of warning. But for one, two or three of you? Go forth and be sushi merry!

This is a super sweet Japanese restaurant which has some of the freshest sushi I can remember eating — you just need to make sure that you allow extra time for eating-​in at lunch time, as it can be pretty slow.
We ordered a few things to share between us — a sushi platter, sashimi platter, seaweed salad, edamame (plain and chilli). The stand out dishes were definitely the fresh seafood dishes — the sashimi was absolutely heavenly and I loved the sushi selection. The downside was that it was all pretty slow — we were there for about an hour and half all up. That being said, there was only one chef in the kitchen and the place was mobbed so it’s understandable that it was a little slow.
I’d go out of my way to go here next time I’m in Edinburgh, the sushi and sashimi was that good.

Tried this new place after a recommendation by a friend and definitely enjoyed our time.
Black cod curry — awesome. Perfectly cooked — batter on fish crispy, fish delicate, and curry sauce tasty. Sushi was quite nice too, though chirashi bowl a wee bit too wee.
Being a new restaurant, it still has some teething pains, but overall enjoyed our time. Will be back!

Noticed at the start of the week that this place (on the site of Meadowwood) had now opened so was ripe for trying out.
Dinner tonight therefore consisted of some of the best sushi I’ve had in the city, coupled with very attentive service. At £7.90 the mixed sushi selection was very good value, as was the spicy tofu starter and my companion thoroughly enjoyed her bento box. Tea comes in good sized tea pots and is bottomless.
As we were sat by the door we couldn’t help but overhear the compliments that practically everyone who left before us was showering on the place so it would appear to have a (deserved) bright future. The large main window may prove a problem in terms of the mean temperature in the coming couple of months but that I imagine can be tastefully dealt with.

I’ll definitely be back for takeaway. The food was excellent and well priced. I had a veg set Bento box which included a generous portion of veg tempura, more miso than I could eat and beautiful fresh avocado maki. I received a complimentary tea while waiting which I thought was a nice touch but it was underbrewed and smelled of fish.
Service was a bit odd there was a lovely young girl serving me but it seemed the woman in charge was stressing out and ordering her about the place even though there were few customers who all appeared happy. That really irritates me so between that and the fishy tea I don’t think I’d eat in the restaurant.
Definitely check it out for good value takeaway.