Sushi Fujinaga

Sushi Fujinaga (鮓 ふじなが)

⭐⭐⭐⭐

🍣 Sushi / 📍 Azabu-Juban

📓 Visits: 2 (2024, 2023)

Limited to 8,000 members, with all memberships issued, Sushi Fujinaga might be the most exclusive sushi restaurant in Japan and there's no other sushi restaurant like it.  The room seats 12 with diners equally spaced around a large, U-shaped counter.  A wall of Baccarat crystal figures (apparently gifts from customers) decorates the space, which must be worth a small fortune.

The food is mostly faultless.  The shari was outstanding: chewy, well-balanced and never boring.  All the neta is the best quality.  It's not just sushi that's served here: Parma ham, gyoza, karaage, yakisoba, unadon, ramen, dandan noodles have been on the menu on my visits.  A different type of rice was served with the unadon, again outstanding.  The signature items include the otoro nigri, scored 50 times with all the sinew removed with tweezers, the nodoguro aburi and the torutaku gunkanmaki with caviar.  On visit #1 the bottan ebi nigiri was the most memorable item for me: butterfly cut and beating even the bottan ebi at Sushi Namba, epic didn't do it justice.  On visit #2 the most outstanding dish was kuruma ebi, aori ika, gindara, Ezo awabi in a butter oyster sauce.  The quality of ingredients and depth of flavour was second to none.  It was the kind of dish that you could almost not bear to eat because you knew that would mean it would come to an end.  But most memorable of all was a a dish of kinki, out-of-season matsutake (grown exclusively for here) and fuka hire then firefly squid that had an ethereal flavour, without the usual bitter taste of squid guts.  I rated most items 10/10 and nothing lower than 9 on visit #1.

Fujinaga-san oozes tranquility and quiet authority, though unless you're sat directly opposite there's not much opportunity for conversation.  "Tsumami" are made in an open kitchen and served to all diners at the same time.  Fujinaga-san speaks into a PA system to introduce these dishes, another feature unique to this restaurant.

Fujinaga-san forms all the nigiri and serves in batches of four, but all the neta is cut by kitchen staff.  Service is tight with at least three dedicated wait staff and a small army of sous chefs.  Despite the luxury there's no pressure to spend money on expensive drinks: just drinking tea is absolutely fine.  A Tabelog review taken in the month following my second visit shows a near identical menu.  Another blog post from a couple of years back has some good pictures of the food and restaurant.

I felt the yakisoba was a bit salty on visit #1 and that the course ended a bit quick.  It's such a fantastic experience you want it to last that bit longer.  And it would have been nice if a dessert could be included.  On visit #2 the otoro was served too cold, as was the kasugo.  Temperature control is so important when it comes to sushi and when you're paying this much it has to be perfect every time.  This time it wasn't so, as such, I've slightly lowered my score.

If you can't get into Sushi Fujinaga the closest comparison would be Sushi Yoshida in Hiroo and Sushi Kousuke in Shinjuku (review here).  It's not cheap but when you consider the quality and quantity of expensive ingredients I think it's reasonable value.  Visit #1 was almost perfect, visit #2 not quite as good, but for sure this is one of the very very best sushi restaurants in Tokyo.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1307/A130702/13265370/

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.98

📱 Booking: ⬛ Members and their guests only.

📍 Location: 

4F Carte Blanc Azabu-Juban, 1-5-18 Azabu-Juban.  2 mins from South Exit 2 of Azabu-Juban station, Oedo Line - head for Exit 7 then bear left and go through the car park building; or 5 mins from Azabu-Juban station Exit 4, Namboku line.  4F multi-tenant building.
Map data ©2023 Google

📅 Visit March 2024

🍣 Otoro (200kg)
🍣 Nodoguro aburi
🐟 Kinki, matsutake, fuka hire, hamaguri dashi
🍣 Kasugo
🍣 Kinmedai, shima aji, takenoko gyoza
🍣 Katsuo zuke
🐟 Kuruma ebi, aori ika, gindara, Ezo awabi, butter oyster sauce
🍙 Torutaku caviar gunkanmaki
France nama ham, hotaru ika
🍣 Akami zuke
🐟 Torofugu karaage
🍣 Shin-ika
Unadon, miso soup
🐟 Kuruma ebi, kobashira, ikura
🍣 Bafun uni
🍜 Miso ramen

💴 Damage: 55,000 incl. tea
💴 Time taken: 1h55m

📅 Visit August 2023

Karasumi; nore sore sunomono; matsumaetsuke; shirataki, mozuku
Maguro nigiri
Nodoguro nigiri
Nodoguro chawanmushi
Kohada nigiri
Kaki sautee
Fuka hire, kegani, hamaguri dashi
Akami zuke x2 nigiri
Parma ham, managatsuo frit
Shiro ika nigiri
Kinki yakimono, hamaguri dashi
Katsuo nigiri
Hotate, kuruma ebi yakiaoba
Bottan ebi nigiri
Torutaku, caviar gunkanmaki
Unadon, caviar
Yoichi ensui uni donburi
Dandan noodles

💴 Damage: 56,100 (45,000 + 2 drinks @6000 + 10%)
⏱️ Time taken: 1h40m