I was expecting quite a bit from Viktor, a “Modern Japanese Restaurant, located in Knightsbridge. The location seemed right, the menu seemed interested … its just a shame that no one told me that in just a few days time it was closing for renovation! If I had known this I would have thought twice about making a booking for dinner tonight. Over half the items we wanted to try were not available as the kitchen was apparently running down their supplies …

Walking in at 7.30pm on a Friday evening the restaurant was practically empty except for one or two other diners. This was not a good sign! However by the time we left a couple of hours later it did start to fill up a bit though not by much.

First impressions were pretty good – we were seated quickly at a window seat in a room which was dominated by browns and dark colours popular with modern Japanese restaurants. Loads of mirrors line one side of the wall, presumably to make the restaurant feel bigger than it actually is. Our serviettes were folded up like a little suits and our soy sauce saucer was in a cute little fish dish. However things soon degenerated when choice after choice got shot down. Perhaps if the waiter had told us from the outset what was unavailable our expectations might not have been so disappointed.

Nevertheless we finally settled on a combination which was actually available. We started off with two sushi dishes: Grilled Spicy Salmon and Viktor eel (Avocado, cucumber, tobiko, eel on top)

The sushi wasn’t too bad to be honest though we would have had a lot more had there been availability.

We followed this with a few main dishes of Almond Honey Shrimp Tempura, Duck Leg Sake, Lamb Ribs Teriyaki and a gorgeous grilled Aubergine which was the standout dish of the evening. The tempura was average, the duck leg was salty and the lamb ribs … tasted too much like lamb! Ha!

Although we were quite full at this stage we still pushed on with some dessert. Pat went for his favourite green tea ice cream and I thought I’d try something different: wasabi ice cream. It was surely the oddest thing I’ve ever eaten – it was sweet but also not sweet. Strange and, admittedly, very difficult to get through. I was almost grateful I only had one scoop – even if the dish was priced at over £6!

With the 50% off the meal was still quite expensive, though admitted we had quite a few dishes, but I think at full price the restaurant would have been slightly overpriced. Service was a bit hit and miss – such as the not explaining from the beginning which dishes were unavailable and being a bit pushy on drinks.

I’d say our visit tonight was a rather average visit marred mostly by not being able to eat what we wanted.