One Restaurant, Two Great Dining Experiences
Sushi Yūgen carefully packages two authentic Japanese dining experiences into one small, elegant restaurant. Each is exceptional, and very different. The appropriate choice depends entirely on your mood, needs, time and budget.
Reserve at the Chef’s Counter and you’ll find yourself seated at an eight-seat bar, in a small, private oasis at the rear of the restaurant. There, Kyohei Igarashi prepares a nightly omakase that reflects his unusual multi-disciplinary training in Edomae sushi and kaiseki. All the fish and seafood is sourced from the finest Japanese fish markets and flown in directly. And the same is true for all the other ingredients on its tasting menu – save for the truffles you might encounter in a dish of slices of shiromi, fanned out in a pool of truffle sauce, topped with truffle shaving and gold leaf. Or the caviar mingling with salmon roe in a dish of bluefin tuna and Hokkaido sea urchin. The sake list is stellar, features innumerable exclusive imports, and changes often and seasonally. Dinner here is long, indulgent sensory experience – priced at $275.
The Main Counter is instead almost entirely concerned with a separate and equally pleasing Japanese tradition of serving quality sushi correctly (from the itamae’s hand to yours, one piece at a time) and swiftly – in 45 minutes at lunch, and an hour at dinnertime. The three sushiyas who run this counter bristle with sushi experience; collectively they have worked 73 years at leading sushi restaurants here and in Japan. Even this more modest experience consists almost entirely of Japanese product, from rice to fish. Twice a week (Tuesdays and Fridays) guests here will have the pleasure of finding one seasonal dish from the back room integrated into their $98 omakase.
Whether you choose Chef’s Counter or the Main Counter, you get one of the best experiences of their kind in the city. Sushi Yūgen is elevating Japanese dining in downtown Toronto.
