Nari

“Food was so good, it was one of the most memorable meals I’ve had! That’s why it deserves Michelin stars. I highly recommend squid and pork jowl, as well as miang pla”

“Overall the food and service was amazing. The decor was also nice. We chose the tasting menu so we can try more dishes. The stand out items were the duck curry puff, pork jowel, and ox tail curry. These were top notch. The other items we had were executed well, but not quite at a higher level. Our overall experience was great and we would return and probably pick from the à la carte menu.”

“The food is a disappointment here. Half of the dishes, the waiter said are very spicy and the hotness cannot be adjusted. And half or more of the dishes contain cilantro that cannot be removed also. Together, there was not one dish that I wanted to eat and I pay $250 for dinner for two without alcohol. It was a pretty bad experience.”

“Today we dined at Nari and chose the Chef’s Pick course at $120 per person, excluding drinks and tax. I do not say this lightly: this was one of the most disappointing tasting-menu experiences I have ever had, especially for a restaurant positioned at this level. Let me be clear: I fully understand that “Thai-inspired” does not mean strictly authentic Thai food. A restaurant has every right to reinterpret a cuisine, modernize it, or take creative liberties with its flavor language. But when you call something Thai-inspired, there still needs to be a coherent culinary philosophy behind it. Inspiration should mean refinement, interpretation, and balance, not the abandonment of ingredient integrity. What troubled me most throughout the meal was the kitchen’s heavy and relentless dependence on aggressive seasoning. Across multiple courses, the spices, aromatics, sauces, and condiments did not elevate the ingredients; they buried them. Good cooking, regardless of whether it is Thai, French, Japanese, or modern Californian, begins with understanding the natural character of the main ingredient and seasoning it in a way that reveals, sharpens, or complements that character. Here, the opposite happened. The seasoning was so loud and so dominating that the food lost all clarity. Instead of tasting the produce, the protein, or the craftsmanship of the ingredient itself, I felt like I was tasting layer upon layer of seasoning with no restraint and no precision. That, in my view, is a fundamental culinary failure. Seasoning is meant to support food, not replace it. Spice should create dimension, not confusion. Sauce should carry flavor, not suffocate it. When every bite is overwhelmed, the palate becomes fatigued very quickly, and the meal stops being pleasurable. Throughout dinner, I repeatedly found myself asking: what am I actually eating? That is never a good sign in a tasting menu, where every course should have intention, structure, and a clear point of view. By the middle of the meal, we had barely touched much of the food and ended up leaving roughly half of it unfinished. That is extremely unusual for us. In fact, we were so eager for the experience to end that we even skipped the dessert included in the set menu entirely. I cannot remember the last time I wanted a meal to be over this quickly. The service only made things worse. From the moment we walked in to the moment we left, the man at the front counter hardly bothered to look up and speak to guests, as he seemed more occupied with his phone. First impressions matter in hospitality, and this one was cold, inattentive, and dismissive. Even more disappointing, when feedback was invited, it did not feel genuine. If a restaurant is not actually interested in hearing customer feedback, it would be better not to ask at all. Asking for input and then responding with attitude when a guest expresses dissatisfaction reflects poorly not only on service standards, but on the restaurant’s entire culture of hospitality. Yes, the manager offered two complimentary drinks, but unfortunately those were poorly executed as well. A gesture of compensation only helps if the replacement itself shows care and quality. In this case, it did not. For me, this dinner failed on both of the pillars that matter most in a restaurant experience: food and hospitality. Creativity without balance is not refinement. Complexity without discipline is not sophistication. And service without warmth or professionalism undermines everything happening on the plate. We only left 10% on the total, and that was not a tip, it was simply our final statement on the experience. If Google allowed it, I would rate this place 0 stars.”

“Nari has a very nice ambiance, but unfortunately everything beyond that was a disappointment. While the space itself is polished and inviting, the overall dining experience fell far short of expectations. Service was a major issue. Our server came across as rushed, unwelcoming, and disengaged. At first, I assumed it might have been an off moment, but after watching his interactions with nearby tables, it was clearly consistent. There was no warmth, no effort to explain dishes, and no sense of hospitality it felt as though he either didn’t want to be there or was overwhelmed with too many tables. The menu itself is heavily pork-focused. If you are not a pork eater, I would strongly recommend skipping this restaurant, as the majority of the dishes include pork in some form, leaving very limited alternatives. We ordered two beers, both of which were poorly poured, arriving with approximately three to four inches of foam more foam than beer. It looked like beer topped with whipped cream, which immediately set a negative tone for the meal. For food, we ordered the Prik King Gai (crispy chicken stir-fried in sweet and spicy curry paste) and the Gaeng Bumbai Aubergine (crispy eggplant in spicy Bumbai curry). We were warned that the Prik King Gai was very spicy, so we planned to switch dishes if needed. When the food arrived, both dishes were equally and overwhelmingly spicy, with no depth of flavor beyond heat. The eggplant dish offered nothing but spice, and the chicken dish had the texture and taste of burnt crumbs tossed in dry chili no balance, no complexity, and no discernible flavors coming through. Overall, this was not an experience I would return for or recommend to others. While the ambiance is nice, poor service, limited menu balance, poorly executed drinks, and flavorless, overly spicy food made this a very disappointing visit.”