In an age of extravagant sushi omakase (where it would not be out of the ordinary to see sushi counters in New York City charge around $400 or more per person), it is always refreshing to see sushi chefs swim against the tide and offer more affordable alternatives with still high-quality sushi offerings. DC’s sushi scene hasn’t thankfully quite caught up to NYC in terms of price, and the DC outpost of the acclaimed Sushi Nakazawa still charges below $200 per person. We visited Nakazawa DC a while ago for my birthday, and really liked the experience and hoped to visit in the future. Not too long after our visit, however, I learned that the restaurant’s top chef, Masaaki “Uchi” Uchino departed. Chef Uchi later announced an opening of a new project inside an ambitious food hall, The Square. What caught my eyes was the price, with dinner omakase starting at $100 per person and “quick omakase” lunch options (with seven pieces of nigiri, a hand roll and miso soup) at $40 per person. One catch is that the restaurant is not open on Saturday and Sunday, so we had to make a trip along with rush hour traffic to DC from our Maryland home on Friday to try the dinner omakase, which turned out to be more than just solid.

Chef Uchi’s new project, KIYOMI Sushi by Uchi, is more a stall located in the center of the food hall than a formal restaurant. We were exposed to the loud and busy scene of visitors to the food hall (there was a live music “concert” and as soon as we sat down, there was even fire alarm!). Despite the distractions, there was no denying that the food coming from Chef Uchi’s dexterous hands was quite delicious, starting with lovely fatty tuna and smoked salmon on top of rice cracker, followed by Sakura steamed striped bass that you wouldn’t be surprised encountering at another high-end Japanese restaurant. The series of nigiris that followed were also delicious. As it was a sea bream season, chef Uchi brought two versions, an adult sea bream and a baby piece with yuzu pepper (the latter was one of the best pieces from our meal). Some of my other favorites included skillfully torched goldeneye snapper, smoked skipjack and cherry salmon, all displaying top-level freshness and enhanced by optimal rice texture. Jun generally agreed with my assessment, except perhaps for firefly squid with shiso flower which she found to be a little too strong (although I did enjoy its crunchy texture). After a tuna hand roll and tamago, we conclude our meal with matcha sweet tofu that was a surprise hit.

KIYOMI Sushi takes reservations only for dinner, and the stall has only a dozen seats so getting a reservation in advance is highly recommended. There is a variety of sake, beer and wine options to pair with the dishes. As noted above, if you are visiting the stall on Fridays, you will likely have to face some distractions from the wider food hall. Chef Uchi was friendly and approachable when explaining his dishes or introducing sake glasses we ordered. It was hard to tell whether he will keep preparing nigiris at KIYOMI or move on to a more formal restaurant project. In any event, we both appreciated his bold experiment with bringing high-end sushi at a more approachable price point. We will certainly be back in the future to see how KIYOMI evolves over time.

Address: 1850 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20006

KenScale: 8.0/10 (Jun’s Score: 8.0/10)

Website: https://www.dcthesquare.com/eat-and-drink

Reservation via Resy