Sushi Yoshizumi

I was lucky enough to be able to grab reservations here for our anniversary, and just WOW.We got there super early so we can get first choice of seating. It's kind of subtle and you def need to look for signage to location Sushi Yoshizumi. My tea was never empty and I always had an abundance of ginger. The food was absolutely amazing. I dream of this place. Definitely on the pricier side, but you must experience it! No filler, no gold flakes, just straight delicious fresh amazing nigiris.They were also really sweet and gave me roses a the end of our meal.

Not the best restaurant I have been to, but Michelin star-worthy.Some highlights: a lot of food, really good flavors, textures can be weird at timesSome downside: dessert flan was subpar, tamago was underdone, no togo boxes (I stuffed myself to death)Store has no signs, so it look closed.In the end, I cherish the experience, but did not find one thing I want to splurge on there again.

I came here for my birthday! My husband took care of the booking (bless him!). From what he tells me, reservations are a little tricky as they are only open every Wednesday at 9pm for the next 2 weeks, and sometimes returning guests may get special privilege to be pre-reserved.We got a 5pm slot and arrived 10 minutes before, and we were greeted at 5pm right on the dot. Seating is first come first serve, and there are only 8 seats available in the restaurant at a time.For our experience we got the regular sake tasting (highly recommend, there's some fun tastey varieties that went great with the food, and apparently they are all very rare!)This was my first omakase experience, and honestly I had such a good time! The rest of our entourage were all returning customers and they all had great rapport with Chef Yoshizumi. He seems like a mindful and gracious host and takes his time to make sure everyone is comfortable and taken care of. It's a small operation, just chef and waitress that work all night to make sure guests were all accommodated. I thought they worked great as a team.I'm not much of a sushi aficionado, but all I can tell you as a fine dining enjoyer that for my first omakase experience, I had a wonderful time! I felt like the food quality was super high, the pacing was excellent (I left feeling just full enough), and despite being on the more shy side I didn't mind the intimate dining experience with just 8 people.At the end of the night I received a special surprise for my birthday and everyone wished me well. What a wonderful way to celebrate my special day! Thank you team Yoshizumi for creating this special memory for me, I would absolutely love to come back one day!

Having went to a couple of top sushi omakase in Tokyo such as Harutaka, Yoshizumi would be ranked in the top 20 even in Tokyo. Loved the salt and vinegar balance in the Shari and how the rice breaks apart in your mouth, though as a personal preference I like the rice a little more al dente. Also they carry rare sake such as Juyondai you can't even find in Japan. This is the best sushi omakase you can get in Bay Area and possibly US. Any better you have to fly to Tokyo.

Reservations are a bit easier to get now, but still recommend checking tock when they open up at 10pm. 8 person sushi bar with two seatings (5pm and 8pm). Dinner takes approximately 2.5 hrs.Make sure you have the address as there is no door sign with the name of the restaurant.They serve a variety of unique fish and preparations that I've never had before (cod stomach and half cooked ikura). Fish was super fresh and top notch quality. The main reason for 4 instead of 5*, is that the price is exceedingly expensive. After the mandatory service (20%)/reservation (2%) fees and taxes (9.625%), it will come out to about $440/pp as of 9/2023. Reservations are also NON-REFUNDABLE. They also have a menu of a variety of sake (https://sushi-yoshizumi.squarespace.com/beverage-menu). This amount gets close to 3* Michelin prices and I personally don't think the quality is worth it at the current price.Am I glad I tried it? YesWould I come back? Probably notWould I recommend? Only if you are fine paying around $900-1000 for 2 people after drinks.

When you make a rez here, the chef makes it known that there are no frills, and I love that! My fiancé and I are well versed in the omakase realm and we were very impressed by the fish selection and the chef's craft. I think it's important to note that fresh wasabi is integrated in a lot of his dishes. They grate it in front of you and each time it's incorporated, it unwrapped different flavors, which we were pleasantly surprised by. He started off with some dishes unique to the restaurant and each one exposed the freshness of the seafood without being too fishy. And once again-- no frills, so there were no unnecessary enhancements to the dishes, just the richness of the fish. It is pricey, but you leave unbelievably full and satisfied. Once the nigiri started coming out, it felt like a never ending, blissful dream. This is also the best time to go cause it's firefly squid season! Aside from that, my favorites were the monkfish liver, tuna trio, and roasted sea bass. Oh, and all the wasabi of course. Lastly, we were celebrating an anniversary and they presented us with a homemade bouquet which was a thoughtful touch. Would recommend this to anyone and everyone.

This nondescript downtown San Mateo restaurant is unequivocally the best sushi restaurant in the Bay Area. It's a 20-plus-course, two-hour meditative experience that impresses with the subtlety of intricate flavors. Each piece builds upon the last.This was my second in-person visit (I also did takeout during the pandemic), and the quality of the meal has only improved. While the chef isn't as conversational as some other top Omakase spots, he doesn't need words to communicate what he is doing - transporting you to the best sushi counters in Tokyo. And he does it without the torches, caviar, and gold leaf common at other spots. That doesn't make those places bad, it just pushes you to a more serene new place.Service is handled by the chef and one assistant; there's also a dishwasher hidden in the back. There's none of the aggressive drink-pushing, but be aware you will be charged ($7) for water. The restaurant itself is sparse, with no reference to the multiple accolades (a Michelin star that really should be two, the continual raves from the restaurant industry) the restaurant has earned.Most notably, this is the sushi counter other sushi chefs want to visit. Reservations are difficult but worth the effort.

Sushi Yoshizumi is my favorite restaurant in the Bay Area. Akira Yoshizumi executes edomae sushi at a high level and it's just delicious. I really love tasting what's in season (from Japan). Watching chef prepare the dishes is a cool show, especially seeing the precision, skill, and care he exhibits. Lovely experience and I aspire to eat here more often.

As someone who doesn't eat omakase that often, here's my honest review: there were things I loved and things I didn't like as much, but it's worth it for the overall experience.Reservations are released every Wednesday at 9pm for bookings two weeks out. They're closed on Mondays and Tuesdays and have two seatings each day (5pm and 8:15pm) the rest of the week. It's an eight-seat counter with five seats on the longer side and three on the shorter side. They only offer omakase, and right now it's at $325 per person. With service, taxes, and fees, this comes out to $875 for two (plus an optional sake pairing, which you can order in person). They only take reservations for parties of 2 or 4.Reservations sold out quickly, within the first 20 minutes. I'm not sure if this was an outlier, because they told me in person that their reservations are not as popular as they used to be. Sometimes it takes a few days for them to sell out.You can get a sense of how opinionated they are about their omakase just from reading the description on Tock. I read a lot of reviews before coming, and people tend to crown Sushi Yoshizumi and Sushi Shin as the best omakase in California. I've had omakase with a similar or higher price before, but have never had a true edomae omakase experience or sat at the chef's counter. So I was really excited about coming.I don't eat omakase very often, and my honest confession is that I don't think I can really tell apart the finer intricacies that set $400 omakase apart from $200 omakase. That being said, I do think this was a very unique experience for me. It was intimate, lowkey, and almost heartwarming. It felt special in many ways.The doors opened a couple of minutes before 8:15. The seats are first come, first serve. If you want to be able to pick your seat, arrive 5-10 minutes early. We arrived around 8 for our 8:15 reservation and were the first group there. They do not seat you early.After everyone was seated, we had an option of ordering a sake pairing (there was a full-size option and a mini option). There were 5 sake in total. Chef Yoshizumi began by grating wasabi by hand and prepared everything by himself, in front of us. I was utterly impressed with how well seasoned everything was. I did not find anything too bland or too salty/overpowering. The progression of the courses were well thought out, so that, for example, leaner pieces followed fattier pieces. I did do some research beforehand & learned that kohada (gizzard shad) is one of best ways to judge the skills of a sushi chef. I would say that I loved how the kohada was prepared. This was one of my favorite pieces of the night. One of my other absolute favorites was the ankimo (monk fish liver). And shirako (fish sperm) was one of the courses.There were some pieces that I loved and some pieces that I didn't like as much, which I think was perfectly fine and normal. I didn't really expect everything to blow my mind. But I think the overall experience really came together and I walked away feeling happy and content. We didn't chat up with Chef Yoshizumi very much during service, because he seemed pretty focused. But the intimate atmosphere also made it a bonding experience for us and other guests. The meal took about 2-2.5 hours in total and we finished with hot tea and a soy pudding as dessert. We did notice that while preparing some courses, Chef Yoshizumi threw away some of the pieces he cut, presumably because they didn't reach his standards. It showed his rigor and strive for excellence. He also looked up to observe everyone's expression while we tasted each of the courses, which honestly made me a little nervous but was a sign that he cared about what he was delivering.The knife that he used seemed a little blunt and it wasn't cleaned after each course (this is just an observation). The second to last course (not including tea and dessert) was a sushi roll, and it looked a little sloppy (again, just an observation).Overall, this experience felt unique and so personal. It's honestly hard to separate the food from the rest of the experience like service and the interactions with Chef Yoshizumi. They came closely together as a package.Now the ultimate question: would I come back again? I think I would. It is very pricey (it's almost as expensive as most three-star restaurants), but the experience is worthwhile. That is, if you care about the experience. Omakase doesn't mean as much imo if you don't care about the rest of the experience. In that case, this may not be the best way to spend your $500.

Very traditional Japanese omakase each course carefully curated, prepared and served by Chef Yoshizumi - every item was super tasty fresh and unique. Mackerel is my absolute favorite type of fish and I was delighted with at least 3 mackerel items each served differently. Yum.Yelp won't let me order the collage but you essentially start with a super fresh shot of seaweed, make your way to monkfish liver, go through a bunch of nigiri then giant prawn, uni, negitoro... end with egg, hojicha and nice dessert. It was the most epic journey mouthful of Japanese goodness total 25 "courses" in 2.5 hrs watching Chef perform art in front of you. It can't get any better than this I promise. If you truly appreciate Japanese seafood and sushi without the gold flakes, flower petals truffle caviar frivolous nonsense, this place is for you. Service was top notch as expected, super attentive server who picked up on each diners cues/needs, my hot water was always flowing and ginger was never empty. If you had to take a washroom break , you would not miss your course alongside your cohort of diners; Chef will serve you when you come back to your seat. Bathroom was clean with air filter and toto if that will change your mind on this at all haha. In any case an overall pleasant dining experience.One thing out of your control - as is all omakase, you're stuck with your dining "cohort" of 6 other ppl (not counting your +1) in small space without music so if your cohort sucks then you're stuck listening to their babble. My cohort had too many young foodies with one that wouldn't shut up about omakase experience in other cities/restaurants in awkward non fluent Japanese, it almost diluted my own focus on this omakase but nonetheless, all 25 courses made it safely in my belly and photo album, and all is well.