Ichikawa

Ichikawa (いちかわ)

⭐⭐⭐⭐

🍣 Sushi / 📍 Minami-Azabu

📓 Visits: 1

Many years ago a foodie told me Ichikawa's sushi was "the best" but with the course at around 30K, a not particularly high Tabelog rating and not a place you hear much about I never made visiting a priority.  I had also heard that service wasn't very good.  Earlier this year I finally went through an invitation as part of a group.  The restaurant is very spacious by sushi restaurant standards.  The counter supposedly sits 10-11, which might be tight.  On my visit there were eight of us and ample room.  The seats are pretty small so if you're very tall you might be uncomfortable.  The atmosphere is always different in kashikiri so I can't fairly judge.  Ichikawa-san introduced each item of sushi but was very quiet and had very limited (but good-humoured) conversation with the host only.  On the other hand he was more than happy to pose for photos at the end of the meal.  A friend of mine says he's "sensitive".  But the most important thing is the food and this was near perfect sushi for me.  The only piece I could fault was the akami which wasn't zuke and, relatively speaking, didn't have much flavour.  A mere 9/10.  This was more than made up for by the penultimate piece in the sequence: akami again but this time zuke.  Incredible flavour and 10/10.  Tuna is supplied by Yamayuki and, unusually, two pieces of chutoro and two pieces of otoro are included in the course.  Today's tuna was from a 83.3 Kg fish from Shiogama.

I don't normally take pictures of sushi but that's the only way to appreciate how much sea urchin was in the uni maki (one shared between two diners).  A new season ikura donburi was outstanding and I rated the kohada 10 as well.  Shari was near perfect - 9.5, perhaps 10/10.  Sashimi is cut generously and the neta on the nigiri are large so with 6 tsumami and 12 nigiri, tamago (three pieces!) and miso soup I was comfortably full and did not order anything else.

While the food was near faultless, the choice of neta is very conservative, it was only the uni, zuke and ikura that were memorable and maybe only the zuke that truly rocked my world.  It's perhaps that lack of personality that's stopping this restaurant from getting a super high Tabelog rating.  Nonetheless, I went in pretty skeptical about Ichikawa but came out convinced it's underrated.  At JPY 33,000 it's not cheap but when you consider the course includes 6 pieces of tuna and that uni maki it's good value.  If you're serious about sushi I strongly recommend a visit to Ichikawa, but if you're looking for atmosphere then look elsewhere.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1316/A131602/13210722/

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.7

📱 Booking: 🟧  Omakase only for general reservations.  When the December reservation period opened up there were still seats available a couple of days later.

📍 Location: 

1F OJ House, 2-10-13 Minami-Azabu.  Restaurant is on the ground floor of an apartment block.  Dedicated street-facing entrance.  No sign outside the restaurant.  7 mins North from Shirokane Takanawa station Exit 4.
Map data ©2022 Google

📅 Visit August 2022

Hirame
Engawa
Sawara aburi
Shime saba
Mushi awabi
Hamo, nasu
Akami (nigiri)
Chutoro x2
Otoro x2
Sumi ika
Kohada
Aji
Uni maki
Ikura donburi
Akami zuke
Anago
Tamago
Miso soup

💴 Damage: 34,000 inc. water and one drink
⏱️ Time taken: course 2h