Tenya - Japanese Restaurant & Bar

A$60–80

Came here last Saturday as walk ins (after being asked by an empty Chinese restaurant next door to wait for at least half an hour) just to find our self in much surprisingly pleasant Japanese Restaurant with views and beautiful open air dinning atmosphere. Food was entertaining, decorative, and delicious. Loved the soft shell crabs and the sashimi plater was amazingly presented. Oh dear the cheese cake was incredibly good. Prices are rather at the medium higher end but absolutely worth it. Will come back for our special treats for sure 🤩

We had a thoroughly disappointing experience with this restaurant. And I'll make this clear, we will NEVER return and I will not suggest any of my friends nor acquaintances to come. To begin with, the services were beyond terrible, I was in shock when I had encountered these dreadful services, especially it's in the CBD. When my family and myself got settled down at a table, we had no menus. It doesn't take a genius to realise that customers need menus to order! After several prompts they finally got us menus. Keep in my mind when we were there, there were only three or four customers, they cannot run out of menus! When we started ordering, this bloke who served us seemed careless, he had a blunt tone and his attitude made us vitally uncomfortable. In the end, he didn't even repeat what we had ordered, as a former waitress myself, we have always trained to repeat the orders that the customers have said. But this bloke didn't and it may foreshadow some problems and concerns... The waiting period was long, when four or five dishes were served, we realised that we didn't have food coming for the next 20 minutes, we asked the waitress to check if our other foods are coming, she disappeared for a bit and came back telling us that all the foods have been served. That absolutely dismayed me because we at least have five more orders and those weren't even written on our order! I don't understand how could they make such mistakes because while I booked in, they informed us that there was a minimum charge for sitting in the balcony so we definitely ordered more. We gave up and then went to the counter and pay. If this was any other day I would have just let it go, but the day when I went to this restaurant was on my birthday, and it was my 21st birthday. I've never had my birthday on a Saturday, it's either during the week or me having an exam on that day or having assignment deadlines because my birthday is within my mid-semester period. I was so happy that I found out none of these were on my birthday and the river fireworks were hosted also. Hence, I decided to speak to the manager, when the manager came, I was brought up short by seeing who he was - he was the guy who served us. I told him straight off that I did not have a pleasant dinner and the services were bad, on his defence he said that they were busy. NO! Sir! That's not an excuse! If the river fireworks increased your workload, it is your responsibility to put more staff, it is not a sudden event, you should plan ahead, us customers are there to enjoy, not to put up with your attitudes! And besides, that night was not even fully booked, there were plenty of empty tables inside. I've been to restaurants that were fully packed and had excellent services! So please, pull yourself together. If a manager acts like this, no wonder the general service is disgusting. One thing I'll also mention is that the staff are not well trained at all. There's this lady who overcharged us by $450, but it was refunded so I'm not going to go harsh on this. Although the food was lovely, I did enjoy the food, but the service has persuaded me that I'll never go back, ever again. Seriously, if you go to any restaurants, you would not encounter anything like this, you would have higher expectations considering this is a restaurant located in the Brisbane City! I truly hope that no one else will have the same experience as I had, it was very sad and traumatic.

Update August 2022 Tempura is divine. Beautifully presented and done, every bite was great. March 2022 Very well thought through menu. Great fresh ingredients. We had a 7pm dinner and the service was very fast and friendly. I would definitely order the seafood platter again as it it very diverse and great representation of various Japanese appetizers. Last but not the least is beef carpaccio! It is a upscale restaurant and that is exactly the experience it delivers on very well. I'd get a table outside to get a bit of a river breeze and nice views. P.S. Have to come back for the Black Cod which was divine.

I was the dreaded lone diner for dinner. They gave me a great table and the service was awesome right from the start. I went with 3 courses suggested by the server and she was spot on. I had the chicken skewers, chicken karrage and flame grilled king prawn sushi. It was all delicious. Washed down with a couple of icy Asahi and that was a dinner done great. Top service, beautiful food, nice decor, this is a great place…love it!

Fantastic decoration, view and location. Some nice and well presented food but seem to run out of lots of dishes on early Friday night. Friendly services but seem to be struggling with menu and billing system. Price is fair for location and quality of food but had to pay twice because the billing system forgotten a dish on the bill. Hopefully it’s just a pandemic related issues and decided to give an extra star due to covid times. Will try once more after Covid has settled. Summary: Definitely worth trying if you could close one eye on the service and support it through the pandemic.

Disappointed to see that Tenya didn’t have rave reviews but took my sister and brother-in-law there to try out their menu for their birthday dinner and could only fault that they were under staffed. The food was delicious. The sashimi, is fresh and tasty. Staff were friendly and helped with surprise birthday dessert. The cocktails are delicious and we all can’t wait to go back and try more food there. Would give 4.5 stars but can’t and I would still recommend this Japanese restaurant to friends because the venue, view and food is fantastic. Just understaffed. Highly recommend the beef tataki- delicious 🤤