Nakato Japanese Restaurant & Sushi Bar

This is a big hibachi restaurant located in the University area of Charlotte, NC…it took way longer than expected for the chef to come but it was well worth the wait.
The veggies were fresh, the meats were seasoned & well marinated & the server never missed a beat.
The aesthetics were pretty nice as well.

First time visit.
Definitely make sure to make a reservation with them as that is the only way to get in for the hibachi, otherwise, you may luck out if someone canceled their reservation if you just show up. Make sure your party is all there in order to be seated.
Part of our party was running a few minutes late so we had to wait until they arrived before they would bring us to our table. You will receive a text confirmation the day of requiring you to confirm your reservation.
If you are more than 10 minutes late, they will cancel your reservation. It took some time for a chef to arrive, even though we were the second party to arrive at opening and it wasn't until the first party was done before we got a chef.
I wasn't sure if it was the same one or not as we only saw that chef from behind. If it wasn't for the quality of the food, which was standard hibachi, I would have rated a 1, while our chef was nice, of all the hibachi experiences I've had (upwards of 15-20), I've never had a chef so painfully quiet and boring.
We had a party enough to fill the whole table with children and family from out of state and our chef lacked energy and personality.
He spoke no more than a quiet "choo choo" during what we had to figure out was a train sound and that was it.
No interaction with us and you could cut the silence with a knife.
It literally made our entire party feel awkward.
We had young children in our party who were experiencing this for the first time and even they were unamused. The hibachi food was good, very typical hibachi food which is fine, and the staff were friendly.
Some of our party got sushi and one loved theirs and the other was not a fan due to a variation in the sauce compared other similar rolls they've had.
For the steep price we paid, it was not worth it to us at all to come here as we chose this place for an entertaining experience and it was definitely not that. The people behind us lucked out and we got more entertainment watching their table for two seconds than ours the entire time.
We would maybe come here for the open sushi bar but not for the hibachi in the future.

The sushi is incredibly small.
Much smaller than I remember- although it’s been a while since I’ve been! 3 separate sushi dishes were in this container.
The dragon roll, panther roll, & California roll (not pictured) were so tiny yet so expensive.
Both the dragon roll & panther roll cost $16 each and the taste was nothing special.
I honestly have gotten better sushi for the money spent from the grocery store.
Im disappointed! I won’t order sushi here again.