Sushi Masuda

Sushi Masuda (鮨 ます田)

⭐⭐⭐

🍣 Sushi / 📍 Omotesando

📓 Visits: 1

With Michelin-starred restaurants in Taipei and the Four Seasons Kyoto and a third restaurant in the Peninsula Tokyo, Rei Masuda is one of the most successful high-end sushi chefs Japan has produced.

Prior to starting that mini-empire Masuda-san trained briefly at Tenzushi, spent 9 years at Sukiyabashi Jiro and then opened his own first restaurant in Omotesando in 2014.  He won his first Michelin Star in the 2015 Tokyo Guide, which was upgraded to two Stars in the 2017 Guide until the restaurant suddenly closed in September 2019, purportedly due to a dispute with the owner of the building.  2020-2021 was not the best time to open a restaurant but it was always a matter of time before Masuda-san made a comeback, and with the end of the pandemic in sight (we hope) he re-opened at a new location in Omotesando in February 2022.

Omakase is JPY 35,200 and consisted of 8 tsumami, 11 nigiri, half a makimono, tamago-yaki and miso soup on my visit.

All of the tsumami were good but none particularly so.  I was hoping for an improvement in the nigiri but these were very mixed.  Tuna was from a 140kg fish from Yamaguchi and the first nigiri was akami zuke.  Again good, but not amazing.  Kohada was super-sour.  Being slightly cold didn't help with this and if I hadn't been in public I would have had sour-face.  If sumi ika was also a little cold then the chutoro was way too cold and spoiled by too much sinew.  Similarly, otoro had a lot of sinew and was a little cold.  On the positive side kuruma ebi was very sweet and anago was melt-in-your-mouth great.  The rice was excellent, some of the best I've had in any sushi restaurant and the shoyu used to season the neta was distinctly good too - sharp, full of umami but not too salty.  

Before the tamago-yaki is served the assistant chef will ask you if you'd like kanpyo-maki or negi-toro (or both) and then Masuda-san will ask if you'd like to order anything else.  Uni was available as an additional item but chef said he didn't recommend it.  I hadn't noticed that uni was missing from the course until he mentioned it.  Good uni is expensive, especially so this year, so it's not typically included in cheaper sushi courses or if it is it's not very good quality.  But at this price I'd expect a quality uni to be included.

The atmosphere was relaxed.  Plenty of chat from chef and his assistant who was quite animated.  The room was a little cold but the underside of the counter is heated.  No English was spoken on my visit.

Overall this was pretty disappointing.  Very ordinary tsumami, poor temperature control, poor quality tuna and no uni.  At 35K, pricing is equal to some of the very best sushi restaurants in Tokyo, but what I had fell well short of that.  The restaurant hadn't been open much longer than a month when I went but that's enough time for such an experienced chef to get it right and indeed, the faults were all with the neta rather than anything else so I don't see things improving over time.  Not recommended.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1306/A130602/13268503/

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ 3.8 (value: 2.5)

📱 Booking: 🟩 https://omakase.in/en/r/gt442916.  Lots of seats free each month but, initially, perhaps no more than one seat for solo diners.  You generally need to keep checking back.

📍 Location: 

3-14-27 Minami-Aoyama.  Dedicated street-facing entrance.  2 mins walk North-East from Omotesando Station exit A4.
Map data ©2022 Google

📅 Visit March 2022

Suppon dashi
Torafugu, ankimo
Unagi tennen
Shirasu chawanmushi
Karasumi moichi temaki
Futomaki
Kaki
Shiro-amadai
Akami zuke (nigiri)
Shime saba
Akagai
Sumi ika
Sayori
Chutoro
Otoro
Kohada
Kuruma ebi
Katsuo
Anago
Miso soup
Half negi-toro (or kanpyo-maki)
Tamago-yaki

💴 Damage: 36,300 (35200 + 1 bottle of water at 1100)
⏱ Time taken: 2h20m