Questions travelers ask
What happens if you can’t get the table?
Nothing is charged. We tell you plainly that the seat could not be secured, and we offer honest alternatives of the same caliber — counters of equal craft that are simply hard to reach from abroad. You are free to decline them all and owe us nothing.
When am I charged, and when do I enter my card?
Never at the request stage, and never on our own initiative. When we reach a table we hold it and write to you; you approve it on your status page and add a card there. The booking fee is authorised at that moment and charged only once we confirm with the house. Only when you approve a table we are holding — not before. The approval page asks for your card and authorises the booking fee; it is charged once we confirm with the house. If you decline the table, or we never reach one, no card is ever taken and nothing is charged.
How is my card handled?
Your card is handled by Stripe, the same infrastructure used by Amazon and Shopify — we never see or store your card number. If the table falls through after your approval, the authorisation is released and nothing is charged.
Can I cancel? What if my flight is delayed?
Until you approve a table you can withdraw your request at any time, free of charge, and you can decline what we found just as freely. Once you have approved, the restaurant's own cancellation policy applies in full, whatever the reason — a delayed or cancelled flight included. We pass that exact charge through to your card with no markup (nothing where the house has no policy); we sit between you and the house to collect it and cannot negotiate it on your behalf. Our fee, already earned, is not refunded. We always email you before any charge is made.
What languages can I write in?
Any language you like. Requests, email and chat are all answered in your own language — our desk matches you. The one exception is the optional on-call concierge phone line, which is answered in English; calls to the restaurants themselves are always made by us, in Japanese.