Udatsu Sushi

Udatsu Sushi (宇田津 鮨)

⭐⭐⭐

🍣 Sushi / 📍 Naka-Meguro

📓 Visits: 1

I went for the cheapest lunch course priced at JPY 8,800 inclusive.  The best pieces in the set were the buri which had been aged and had a strong taste, the akami zuke and chutoro but these were only good.  The uni had a medicinal taste.  Kuruma ebi was tough and had very little flavour.  Steamed oyster was dry and had little flavour.  (A perfect oyster should make you orgasm.)  The shirako wasn't the best quality and the anago was pretty dry and standard with no fat at all.  Rice was al dente, kernels were fat and seasoning mild.  I felt like the rice got a bit dry and boring as the meal went on.  There were a few times I felt the chef was a bit heavy-handed with the wasabi.

The atmosphere was very relaxed.  I've certainly never been in an omakase sushi restaurant playing background music and with art on the walls.  There's no simultaneous start and the meal did not take very long but pacing was quite uneven - fast to start with then slower.  Chef was enthusiastic and knew most of the names of the fish in English, but you don't get the detailed explanations without Japanese.  The sous-chef was a little brusque and had difficulty understanding English.  Seven of the nine guests on my visit were non-Japanese.

Had it not been for the award of a Star in the Tokyo 2023 Michelin Guide I'm unlikely to have ever visited Udatsu Sushi.  There have been a few good sushi additions to The Guide in the last couple of years: Hato, Sushiya Shota, Sushi Matsuura, Ryujiro, all restaurants I'd visited before Michelin picked them up.  But most new additions I take one look at and don't look back.  There are dozens of sushi restaurants in Tokyo better than Udatsu and it's inclusions like this that illustrate exactly why foodies distrust Michelin in Japan.  It felt to me like the Star was being awarded for everything but the sushi itself.

If you're not very experienced with sushi, and comfort and communication are more important to you than the quality of the food then you might very well enjoy a visit to Udatsu.  But you wouldn't have to throw a stick very far to find much better sushi.  With some more planning and another 2,300 yen you could go to Sushi Tsubomi which is just up the road, accustomed to non-Japanese guests but is not in the Michelin Guide.  Oku was also awarded a Star this year and is the only other newly-starred sushi restaurant I planned to visit.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1317/A131701/13232637/

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ 3.6

📱 Booking: 🟩 Easy.  Same week via Tabelog or phone.  Same day or next day may be possible by phone.  English spoken.  No simultaneous start.  Children and buggies accepted in the private room.  Vegetarian menu available to book.

📍 Location: 

2-48-10 Kami-Meguro.  6 minutes walk South West from the West Exit 2 of Nakameguro station.  Dedicated street-facing entrance.
Map data ©2022 Google

📶 Free WiFi? ✅ Yes

📅 Visit November 2022

Yasai temaki
Kohada
Sawara
Buri
Uni, crispy seaweed
Sumi ika
Akami zuke
Chutoro
Toru taku
Kuruma ebi
Shirako aburi, pink grapefruit gunkanmaki
Kaki, 2-year aged miso
Miso soup
Anago
Tamago

💴 Damage: 8,800 inc. water
⏱️ Time taken: 1h10m