How Atlanta Became a Hub for Omakase

Fifteen years ago, I journeyed to Atlanta for the first time to interview for graduate programs. While my matriculation at the University of Georgia half a year later was the most consequential outcome of this visit to the beating heart of the American southeast, another experience quietly planted a seed that would grow into one of my greatest joys.

I experienced my first sushi omakase.

Both loyal readers of my sporadic musings doubtless know of my ravenous affinity for sushi, and omakase in particular. I don't recall where I dined, what neighborhood it was in, or what I was served (except finding my first cold sake wildly objectionable––how far I've come!), but I do remember it being my first bona fide experience at a sushi counter being served piece after piece of fish without making selections myself.

After years of regular dining at Salt Lake City's beloved Takashi, the temple of premium Japanese food and sushi in the motherland and an incredibly important locus of my growing love of food (and conquering of my childhood fear of food), omakase was the logical next step. And ever since, I've been hooked, having the privilege to dine at some of the best sushiya across the States and the globe––New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Tokyo, Copenhagen.

Despite housing more residents than all but five of the country's metropolitan areas––and being one of a handful of American cities ranked by the Michelin Guide every year––Atlanta doesn't exactly have a soaring reputation for excellent food. (The important exception, of course, is Buford Highway, a dozen-mile stretch of suburban road with a greater concentration of killer immigrant cuisine than just about anywhere in the States). Instead, New Orleans, Nashville, Charleston, and even Savannah are the consensus heavyweights of dining in the southeast.

This was especially true back during my first residency in Georgia––Athens, a bustling college town some 90 minutes from the Atlanta metro, had some exceptional establishments that I frequented during my time at UGA, many of which are still destinations in their own right, and all of which I remember fondly as outposts of my budding foodiedom. But aside from longtime culinary jewel Bacchanalia, much of fine dining, and especially sushi, was nothing to write home about in Atlanta.

"A higher level of authenticity and diversity.”

In the last decade, things have changed rather dramatically, with omakase at the vanguard. Today, precisely half of the Michelin Stars awarded to restaurants in Atlanta belong to omakase counters. And new players are emerging regularly, a few with Michelin ambitions looking to harness the city's craze for excellent sushi, but all seeking to sling thoughtful, seasonal, pristine fish in a city that's become known for the genre.

The precise origins of the rise of high-end omakase in Atlanta could be attributed to any number of important players (and other factors, such as Delta's first regular nonstop service to Tokyo), but many agree that Jason Liang's Brush was the catalyst. Coming from Taiwan, Liang noticed a dearth of remarkable sushi establishments in the city, and in 2016 opened a sushi joint in wealthy Decatur that focused on more than tempura shrimp and cream cheese rolls slathered in gloopy eel sauce. "[I]t was important to show guests what high-quality sushi could be beyond rolls with heavy sauces and to build that understanding from the ground up,” Liang says in an interview with Atlanta Magazine.

Introducing unfamiliar, seasonal cuisine to a clientele already broadly unaccustomed to a world-class dining scene was a tremendous risk and required immense patience. But the payoff was substantial, and the restaurant's influence incalculable. Today, O by Brush, the group's omakase counter, holds one of the four coveted Michelin stars granted to sushiya in Atlanta.

"It’s my ikigai — the thing you live for."

Brush was a launchpad for many of the itamae doing the best work in the city, including Lawrence Yu, who helms one of the four omakase counters I've visited since my relocation to Atlanta this year. Omakase Table was born as a popup at Brush, where Yu worked when he relocated to Atlanta, and is now one of four omakase counters with a Michelin star in the city.

Leading a world-class sushi counter wasn't Chef Yu's expected path. The child of restauranteurs in his native Indonesia, he diligently pursued his culinary studies with an eye on a career in fine dining kitchens. “My mom always said I had a good palate and I should go to culinary school,” Yu says in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I thought I would be a French or Italian chef.”

Indeed, his early work involved primarily Western culinary traditions in high-end hotels in Indonesia and Singapore before opportunity came knocking in New York City. But after his relocation, this promise of employment failed to materialize, and he found himself working in New Jersey at Sushi Watanabe, where it was back to square one: despite past employment at some of the best hotels in the southeast Asia, he was doing menial apprenticeship work––including scrubbing floors––and was humbled to become a student again. But he looks back on his time there as pivotal to his eventual career as an itamae. "Watanabe San put the foundation and the discipline in me," he recalls.

You wouldn't think when parking your car (for free, remarkably) in a Publix parking lot in Buckhead that a transcendental meal awaited you behind one of the many strip mall storefronts. But once inside, the serene environment and monumental procession of 20 courses to come occasions the noise of the city to melt away for a couple precious hours.

The otsumami prepared courses, forming fully half of the experience, are particularly inspired, a highlight being a bite of summer in a creamy potage of sweet corn with gently aged scallops from Hokkaido at the bottom. A piece of dry-aged kanpachi nigiri is transcendent with the texture and glorious umami of Chef's precise aging methods. Best of all, a tasting of three different types of Japanese uni provides diners a rare look into the subtle nuances of roe from different species and seawaters. There's some generosity to the procession here as well: included with the price of the dinner are luxury ingredients like caviar and Japanese A5 wagyu, often charged as supplements at similar establishments.

The atmosphere at the 12-seat bar is austere, but congenial. Chef Yu or his acolytes explain the construction of each artistic bite with careful and gentle precision. A more relaxed cocktail bar outside the omakase room offers a place to unwind before or after your dinner. And in case you're still jonesing for Japanese fish the next day, Omakase Table sometimes quietly offers chirashi boxes for pickup featuring the same fish used on the menu that week for a meager $25.

“It’s the culmination of his 30-plus year career.”

Local talent with extensive résumés in fine dining the world over are also rockstars in the sushi scene in Atlanta. Chef Fuyuhiko Ito worked in kitchens around the world, mastering both Western and Japanese ingredients and techniques, before settling in Atlanta. He oversaw Umi, a glitzy Japanese spot stuffed with the well-heeled and celebrity classes in Buckhead, for sixteen years before making his foray into a new solo project in Midtown.

Ito-san's Ishin Omakase, housed in a cavernous, gilded room atop one of the many recently-constructed residential Midtown high rises, was one of the most highly-anticipated openings in Atlanta this year. Tucked behind Celestia, a stylish bar and lounge with one of the most magnificent patios in the city, and above Sozou, a Japanese grill that will open sometime in the next year, it's a miniature empire for Chef Ito and his wife, Lisa.

The vibe is flashy and luxurious without being distasteful. A cocktail in the sprawling lounge overlooking the Midtown skyline, complete with a nightly DJ, is a fitting preamble for cascades of indulgence to come in the omakase room. Once sat at the 16-seat counter, Ito-san proudly displays the glorious aged fish you'll be enjoying that evening, though the aging regimen is decidedly different compared to other edomae philosophies––“The way we preserve the fish is different,” Ito says in an interview with Atlanta Magazine. “A lot of chefs want to do dry-aged fish. We are more wet aged. Our goal is to preserve the freshness, texture, and moisture content.”

It's a decidedly decadent take on the omakase format––your ten or so pieces of nigiri might include a mouthwatering seared nodoguro, one of the most prized fish in the sea, dripping with rendered fat from a brief hit of the butane torch, otoro piled high with shaved Perigord truffle, or A5 wagyu garnished with a gobsmacking amount of fried allium. The handful of bites that precede the nigiri might include a glistening plate of the finest sashimi, and the intermezzo might be a succulent black cod marinated to umami perfection in miso. The best part? No supplements––everything on the menu is included in the menu's fixed price.

Chef's wife, Lisa, is the other half of Ishin's binary star, and nowhere is her influence more obvious to the guest than in her outstanding seasonal desserts––too often an afterthought at omakase counters. An early spring visit featured ice cream with caramelized banana and a soulful cheesecake with verdant strawberries. Both Chef and Lisa are gregarious and eminently hospitable, and at no point does a diner feel any sense of pretense or aloofness from the pair despite the embarrassment of culinary riches they offer up each evening.

"It was a lot of gamble on whether or not the city or the world would be ready for us when we opened. We’re very lucky that the timing was right."

Still other monoliths of the format in Atlanta recruited sushi masters from further afield to manifest their visions. Originally a popup project of the wildly successful local and family-run Castellucci Hospitality Group, Mujō was the brainchild of Federico Castellucci and Chef J. Trent Harris, who Fred met while dining at Chef Harris' counter in New York City.

Harris hails from rural Kentucky, and early on worked as a right-hand man to a Japanese chef in the nearest large city, Columbus. "[H]e needed an assistant and I was basically available, was my qualification. But I really enjoyed the cuisine and the work, and kind of kept pursuing it," Harris recounted in an interview with Rough Draft Atlanta. Seeking greener pastures than Columbus, he wound up in New York City, eventually reconnecting with his love of Japanese cuisine and, more importantly, edomae sushi, working closely with Masaki Saito and Kazushige Suzuki at Ginza Onodera in Manhattan (where, incidentally, I dined in 2018, without knowing that I would eventually be working for Chef Harris in Atlanta at his second restaurant in the city some eight years later). The restaurant earned two Michelin stars during Harris' tenure.

Castellucci was immensely impressed with his experience at Onodera and kept in contact with Harris. When New York City was shut down during the pandemic, Castellucci maintained takeout cuisine at CHG's restaurant in Atlanta, and the timing was perfect for him to invite Chef Harris to open a to-go popup focusing on sushi. The response was overwhelmingly positive, and just a couple of years later, Mujō was opened in its current form in a tiny brick-and-mortar location adjacent to what was previously CHG's finest dining concept. Just shortly after, it gained a Michelin star and was recently celebrated as Atlanta's Best Restaurant by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

A dinner at the counter is a seasonal affair: "If you come to Mujō and then you come a month later, the menu is pretty much completely different," Harris explains. Indeed, the concept of seasonality––the ephemeral nature of ingredients best used at the peak of their excellence––is a staple of Japanese culinary sensibilities.

A handful of composed dishes, called zensai, opens the meal, followed by ten glorious morsels of seasonal edomae-style nigiri. There's the option to add even more premium supplements: a recent visit featured an intermezzo of Hokkaido hairy crab and the restaurant's signature take on a monaka filled with foie gras. Smoke from a supplement of A5 wagyu pressed briefly with a piece of binchotan charcoal is a regular sight in the tiny dining room.

But it's the sushi that really glitters. A sumptuous piece of baby bluefin sees a brief torch to render the fat on the skin and disintegrates with unctuous umami after just a few chews. Snappy kinmedai is granted impossible depth of flavor with the team's thoughtful aging regimen. And despite the tendency of omakase counters to feel like temples, it's always a bit of a party at Mujō––Chef's famous (sometimes infamous) hodgepodge of a Spotify playlist nourishes an environment where guests can relax and enjoy premium ingredients in an unfussy, effortlessly cool setting.

And then there's the world-class beverage program. Sommeliers Kiki Austin and Rachel Lundell curate stellar pairings to accompany the omakase experience, and the sake program in particular shows remarkable gravitas. Meanwhile, Mike Satusky executes exceptional Tokyo-style service at the bar, where you're invited to enjoy an artisanal tipple crafted to your specifications both before and after your dinner, often with rare and allocated Japanese spirits.

"[It] feels less like a restaurant and more like being invited into a particularly food-obsessed apartment."

Multi hundred–dollar sushiya aren't the only brand of establishments having a moment in Atlanta and defining its culinary scene. Homegrown popups are all the rage in the city, and there are dozens of them, many representing some of the most exciting food on offer in Atlanta. Jorom Paler, working under the moniker "Jorom the Sushi Guy" on social media, and his omakase popup, Mikasa, serves as a fantastic example.

Paler is a bit of a homegrown hero––broadly self-taught, he was a lover of food as an adolescent and ravenously explored what was on offer in Atlanta, his home city. In his early 20s he started hosting extensive multi-course dinners for friends and family at home before seizing the city's craze for popups to launch a more public business.

It was this early stage of his career, however, where his ambition proved pivotal to the success of his eventual public-facing popup. While curating dinners in his home, he developed strong relationships with suppliers of fish in Japan, and it's these suppliers that provide the quality of fish necessary to make Mikasa such a serious player in the omakase scene in Atlanta.

Larakin, a wine bar in Midtown, serves as the venue for Chef Paler's current omakase project on Sundays and Mondays. A seat at the cheekily speckled wine bar counter costs diners less than $200, and Paler maintains a vibe not dissimilar to a dinner party in a friend's home. Nowhere to be found is the hushed, nearly religious environment of many of the city's best shops, and Paler's gregarious nature nips any pretense in the bud.

But despite the relative informality of the setting, the fish is no less serious than the best in the city. A parade of nigiri, many thoughtfully dressed with subtle but edgy condiments, meets the same benchmark of quality achieved by sushiya charging double the price of entry. You'll likely experience sought-after bites like toothsome chutoro or sumptuous otoro, and even bafun uni, some of the finest available. Prepared dishes might include southeast Asian inflections, like a Thai-style salad topped with bluefin tuna, and the craftsmanship of each piece is on par with the very best in town.

Diners also have access to Larakin's retail wine selections, opened without corkage at the bar. While the selection leans a bit natty for my taste, a bottle of Scar of the Sea's skin contact Palomino from the Lopez Vineyard, sandwiched between two freeways in the Cucamonga Valley of southern California, was a revelation with bluefin. Chef is a lover of sake, too, and in his infectiously generous spirit might share something rare and wonderful, like Izumibashi's transcendant Rakufumai bottling.

Indeed, the omakase format is having its time in the sun in the bustling cultural hub of the southeast, and contributing to the city's broader quiet, but budding culinary renaissance. From hyper-luxurious shops immersed in the glitz of Buckhead to congenial popups in a compact wine bar, the format is alive and well in Atlanta, and shows no signs of slowing its march amidst a city increasingly hungry for excellent food.

Might Atlanta one day become a culinary destination the likes of neighbors like Nashville and Charleston? If it does, omakase counters played no small part.