We waited an hour for a table. Then waited and waited for dishes to come. It told 2 hours to get a handful of skewers and four dishes. It was excellent food and I would go back for sure.
It's kind of an izakaya but not really since it's more upscale than that, the service is painfully slow and they serve dish they wouldn't have in a Japanese izakaya.
We went there at 9:30 without a reservation. The host said he could seat us in 30 minutes so we told him we would go to Sweets Raku next door and have dessert first. It seemed like a good plan but then he called not 10 minutes after we started eating our first dessert course to say our table was really so we missed that opportunity since we could abandon our food at Sweet Raku.
We got back to Raku at 10:30 and waited for a table and waited and waited, once it got past 30 minutes we should have left but it became a game to see just when we would get a table. It was 11:30 when we got seated and 1:45am when we finished. The service was incredibly slow. In the first 45 minutes we only got three dishes-one every 15 minutes. I've been Izakayas in Japan and in North America so I know that the ones in North America are very different and far more upscale and slow than the common ones in Japan. Usually if I spend that much time in one in Japan it's because there has been lots of drinking and lots of food.
But the food, the food was good enough that I would go back and would recommend it to a diner with time to spare. The foie gras chawanmushi was awesome. We got a special of grilled langoustines that wasn't over cooked and served whole. the yellowtail carpaccio as well as the grilled yellowtail was good. I don't know if the tofu was the freshest I've ever had but it was really excellent in terms of texture. The cost was pretty reasonable, 100 dollars for two people without alcohol. They mixed up our orders twice. Towards the end there was a table of regulars that came in and they got served immediately and got 6 dishes in less than 30 minutes meanwhile there were two tables with reservations that had to wait with us and they waited quite a bit. So don't expect fair or quick service. I wouldn't recommend Raku for a vegetarian as many of the vegetable dishes have fish stock or other animal products in the prep. It's wheelchair accessible but not well designed for it. It's wasn't too noisy and the lighting is decent.