Critics’ choice: The ever-resilient allure of sushi
Morihiro Los Angeles
“During the pandemic’s hardest days, I dreamed of Morihiro Onodera’s sushi rice,” said Bill Addison in the Los
Angeles Times. Carefully sourced, served at mouth temperature, “the grains so distinct you could count them with your tongue,” it’s the “utterly life-affirming” foundational ingredient of every meal the master makes. At Onodera’s latest restaurant, a tiny spot in Atwater Village, those meals begin as low as $45 and peak when you pay to sit at the counter for an extravagant $350 omakase. First comes an array of flavors and textures: silky tofu, marinated salmon roe, steamed abalone with the “peppery” blast of yuzu koshu. Then, the nigiri procession begins, and you settle in for the sensation of cool seafood against fleshy rice, the snap of grated wasabi, and the pleasure of Onodera’s company. “One minute he’s as serious as a jeweler perfecting a ring for his own dearest. The next he’s as casually jokey as your coolest uncle.” Three hours later, he might send you off with fresh-pressed fishshaped waffles to be enjoyed in the morning. 3133 Glendale Blvd., (323) 522-3993
Nakaji New York City
“Try to get a reservation at one of Manhattan’s luxury sushi bars and you’d never guess that the restaurant business is struggling,” said Pete Wells in The New York
Times. Kunihide Nakajima’s omakase sanctuary is among that lucky crowd. Discreetly tucked into a covered passageway between two streets in Chinatown, Nakaji has a small bar near the entrance that serves suave cocktails and small platters of sushi or sashimi. If you have reservations for the $225 dinner, you will be escorted past a sliding wooden door to the sushi counter before Nakajima enters. The seafood, as you’d expect, changes with the season: skipjack tuna in May, daggertooth pike conger in July, and so on. He takes a purist’s approach to nigiri and cuts his fish in thick tiles, often serving it cold. You notice varying textures—some are crisp while others are taut—at first “before relaxing into warm richness.” He usually ends with anago, or sea eel, prepared as his Tokyo grandfather did it, then a simple dessert. The bar, by the way, offers the city’s most exhaustive collection of Japanese whiskeys. 48 Bowery, (646) 478-8282