The Menu

Young beans that made their way into a monk’s thank-you letter seven and a half centuries ago.

Sesame oil · Sesame · Salt

A recipe that left home in exile and traveled five hundred years.

Fried salmon slices and baby potatoes

The most generous form of a dish named after a Latin prayer.

Fried jumbo shrimp · Truffle mayonnaise · Spicy mayonnaise · Iceberg lettuce · Cherry tomatoes

A balance the Japanese say in one word: amakara, sweetness and heat together.

Fried chicken pieces · Iceberg lettuce · Cherry tomatoes · Sweet and spicy sauce · Sriracha mayo

Japanese fried chicken carrying China’s golden age in its name: karaage.

Fried chicken pieces · Iceberg lettuce · Cherry tomatoes

A seaweed once paid to the emperor as tax.

Wakame · Served with lemon and sesame

A sea creature named after a Latin pen case, in Edo’s batter.

Fried calamari · Iceberg lettuce · Cherry tomatoes

The plate with nowhere to hide: fish, blade, judgment.

Salmon · Crab · Shrimp · Eel · Avocado · Lime · Cherry tomatoes · Iceberg lettuce · Unagi sauce

What taught Japan to love raw salmon was not a tradition but a campaign of persuasion.

Salmon · Iceberg lettuce · Lemon

A dish whose name is its own recipe: to cut crosswise.

Salmon · Slivered almonds · Orange · Edamame · Wakame · Avocado · Cherry tomatoes · Cucumber · Iceberg lettuce · Red cabbage · Lemon · Sesame · Rice

The Pacific’s bowl, speaking with the Mediterranean’s shrimp.

Shrimp · Edamame · Wakame seaweed · Avocado · Cherry tomatoes · Cucumber · Iceberg lettuce · Red cabbage · Lemon · Sesame seeds and steamed rice

The bowl’s real idea was never the fish; it was balance.

Fried chicken pieces · Edamame · Wakame · Avocado · Cherry tomatoes · Cucumber · Iceberg lettuce · Red cabbage · Lemon · Sesame · Rice · Sriracha mayo

The monastery rule: give a vegetable the respect owed to the finest fish.

Chickpeas seasoned with cumin · Edamame · Wakame · Avocado · Cherry tomatoes · Cucumber · Iceberg lettuce · Red cabbage · Lemon · Sesame · Rice

The same sentence, spoken with our sea’s word.

Shrimp · Cream cheese · Cucumber · Avocado · Flying fish roe

The roll from Los Angeles, the fish from Norway: a meeting of two newcomers.

Crab · Salmon · Avocado · Cucumber · Cream cheese · Flying fish roe · Sriracha mayo

The roll that taught the West to love sushi, and a friendly lawsuit between two cities.

Crab · Avocado · Cucumber · Cream cheese · Flying fish roe

The lacquer of kabayaki in a modern frame.

Eel · Avocado · Cucumber · Cream cheese · Flying fish roe

The fruit Japan calls butter of the forest, in the family’s greenest member.

Salmon · Avocado · Cream cheese · Unagi sauce · Sesame

The roll where every voice sharing the surname is heard at once.

Salmon · Avocado · Cucumber · Cream cheese · Unagi sauce · Sesame

A roll starring the cheese made famous by a city it never lived in.

Salmon · Cream cheese · Sesame · Unagi sauce

A couple mismatched on paper, inevitable on the palate.

Salmon · Shrimp · Cream cheese · Cucumber · Avocado · Unagi sauce · Sesame

What Japanese describes with dozens of words: everything that happens in the mouth.

Crispy shrimp · Salmon · Avocado · Cucumber · Cream cheese · Flying fish roe

The dragon of the East breathes no fire; it governs the seas.

Eel · Avocado · Cucumber · Cream cheese · Unagi sauce · Sesame

The recipe never quite written down: the chef’s answer for the day.

Salmon · Crab · Avocado · Cream cheese · Cucumber · Flying fish roe

While Hokusai’s wave foams, the mountain in the background never stirs.

Shrimp · Salmon · Avocado · Cucumber · Cream cheese · Unagi sauce · Sesame

A letter to one enormous single-syllable word: umi, the sea.

Salmon · Avocado · Cream cheese · Cucumber · Unagi sauce · Sesame

The scent of the fruit that floats in bathtubs on solstice night, in a roll.

Crispy shrimp · Avocado · Cucumber · Cream cheese · Sriracha mayo · Lemon

The rehabilitation of a fish once refused even by cats.

Tuna · Cucumber · Cream cheese · Sesame · Hot sauce

The whole counter on parade over a single roll.

Eel · Tuna · Salmon · Avocado · Cucumber · Cream cheese

A cooking technique whose name means shine, carried into a roll.

Chicken · Cucumber · Avocado · Cream cheese · Sesame · Hot sauce

The roll that bears our name: a promise made to a word with two meanings.

Salmon · Shrimp · Avocado · Cucumber · Cream cheese · Flying fish roe

The essence of sushi is not fish; it is vinegared rice.

Avocado · Tomato · Lettuce · Cucumber · Wakame

Cold sushi is a photograph; a hot roll is a film.

Salmon · Cucumber and cream cheese · Avocado · Unagi sauce · Hot sauce

Shellfish grow sweeter as they warm; this plate is that chemistry, signed.

Shrimp · Avocado · Cucumber · Cream cheese · Unagi sauce · Hot sauce

The story of the factory that went looking for jellyfish and found crab.

Crab · Cream cheese · Cucumber · Avocado · Unagi sauce · Hot sauce

The streets of Japan are masters of the hot offering; this plate tips its hat to them.

Chicken · Avocado · Cucumber · Cream cheese · Unagi sauce · Hot sauce

The task given to fire is not to cook but to sign.

Flame seared salmon · Avocado · Cucumber · Cream cheese · Unagi sauce · Sesame

The brunch classic was translated once into sushi, then once more into boiling oil.

Salmon · Avocado · Cucumber · Cream cheese · Spicy mayonnaise · Truffle mayonnaise

How does a crunch survive inside the moisture of rice?

Shrimp · Avocado · Cucumber · Cream cheese · Spicy mayonnaise · Truffle mayonnaise

The plate where history catches its own tail.

Crab · Avocado · Cucumber · Cream cheese · Spicy mayonnaise · Truffle mayonnaise

The legacy of the imperial-kitchen chef who dared to tempura a chicken.

Chicken · Avocado · Cucumber · Cream cheese · Spicy mayonnaise · Truffle mayonnaise

The tuna family has met fire before; it has a past cooked over burning straw.

Tuna · Avocado · Cucumber · Cream cheese

The soul of tempura was always improvisation; this roll is that soul, daily.

Salmon · Crab · Cucumber · Cream cheese · Spicy mayonnaise · Truffle mayonnaise

Every temple is entered through a gate; so is sushi.

Philadelphia Classic Roll · California Classic Roll · Kappa Maki

The first rule of Japanese craft: form first, freedom after.

Philadelphia Classic Roll · California Classic Roll · Chicken Tempura · Kappa Maki

The word maki is born of the same verb as the picture scroll: to wrap.

Salmon Maki · Shrimp Maki · Kappa Maki · Crab Maki

The friendship a kitchen named after water struck with fire.

Salmon Flame · Crab Flame · Chicken Flame

Forty-two pieces, one protagonist: every face of salmon.

Philadelphia Mix Roll · Philadelphia Avocado Roll · Philadelphia Tempura Roll · Hot Signature Salmon · Salmon Maki · Salmon Nigiri · Salmon Gunkan

Every member of the family born at a brunch table, in one frame.

Philadelphia Cheese Roll · Philadelphia Classic Roll · Philadelphia Avocado Roll · Salmon Maki

Every answer of a technique born from a misunderstanding, on one board.

Philadelphia Tempura Roll · California Tempura Roll · Chicken Tempura

Forty pieces: the sea in all its moods, told on a single board.

Philadelphia Roll · California Roll · Special Roll · Yuzu Roll · Rainbow Roll

Let textures converse, never shout: a textbook case of a Japanese table rule.

Shrimp · Avocado

One came from Mexico, the other from Norway; they became neighbors at the counter.

Salmon · Avocado

It arrived as a stand-in and took the lead role alone.

Avocado

Two or three ingredients, nowhere to hide: the counter’s most naked examination.

Salmon

In Japan, crab is a winter festival; this roll is that festival on an ordinary day.

Crab

Until your back bends and your beard grows long: the wish a shrimp carries.

Shrimp

The only sushi named after a water spirit.

Cucumber

Hanaya Yohei’s two-finger invention, under salmon’s young silk.

Salmon

A one-line sign written by a scholar has been working for two and a half centuries.

Eel

A customer’s request, a master’s solution: the birth of the battleship form.

Salmon

This time the little ship’s deck carries the sweetness of shrimp.

Shrimp

A deck cut to the measure of the crab’s sweet fibers.

Crab

Italy's best-loved dessert and the jade powder of the Far East, on one plate for the first time.

Served with crumble

Two shops opened in Tahtakale, and a culture of conversation that spread across the world.

At the sushi counter, tea has a name of its own: agari, the one that comes last.