My wife loves sushi but has abstained from raw seafood for 3.5 years due to two pregnancies & other health choices. She recently decided to reintroduce raw seafood to her diet, so we went to Japan for the first time to indulge.
While we’ve had plenty of sushi in London / New York / other metropolitan areas, sushi in Japan was really another level of enjoyable. We were surprised by the differences in each omakase experience – each chef has his own style and there was creativity at each restaurant despite all being very “traditional”.
We are not Japanese and made the bookings through Omakase / Tableall over the last two months.
Restaurants:
1) Akira
2) Amamoto
3) Arai (reservation confirmation said no photos but some diners were taking photos and the chef seemed fine with it)
4) Harutaka
5) Inomata
6) Kimura
7) Sawada (explicitly no photos or phone)
8) Shunsuke
9) Sugaya
10) Sugita
11) Suzuki
12) Takeru
13) Yoshitake (explicitly no photos)
Neither of us are super familiar with the reputations of each place, but my wife’s vote for her favorite was Kimura. My favorite meal was Sugita. Most westerner friendly in my opinion was Yoshitake.
I’m sure regularly available photos online are far nicer than mine, but here are some of my botched ones for fun. We are here for a few more days and will enjoy non-sushi food for the rest of our trip. We both can’t wait to go back for sushi during a different season 😊
by waybackdiner
11 Comments
How much did that run you?
Consider me skeptical.
Some of these are notorious for only taking regulars. Sugita, in particular, is supposedly impossible. Did you seriously make these reservations through TableAll? If so, how far in advance did they confirm the reservation?
Thanks, OP! This is awesome.
Aside from the restaurant’s reputation and Tabelog score, Amamoto and Sawada were the best in terms of taste.
I believe Arai has a no photo policy except for the tuna portion at the main table. I’m not sure if there’s a policy at his sub counter
This is super cool. I was at my favorite omakase spot last Saturday (in the US), and the chef was raving about how he’s going to Sugita in October. Was giddy like a kid on Christmas. Said Chef Sugita is his idol.
How’d you manage to get into Amamoto?
If you guys have never been to one of the big conveyor belt franchises like Sushiro, I’d suggest going to one before you leave. Since you like sushi so much, I think it would be an interesting experience for you to try the affordable and family friendly type as well.
Went to Sugita last year and it was amazing, also had booked through omakase. Is the process via omakase still the same? 1 week out? I heard there were changes with the female sous chef leaving but wasn’t entirely sure.
Any insight would be greatly appreciated! I totally agree with your take too – Sugita was a top 3 meal for me of all time, which is insane because I don’t have any other sushi omakase even in my top 10
13 in 18 days… man this is another level lol