Sushi Karashima

I have been thinking about whether to post my unpleasant experience for the past two weeks as I am not someone who rants online very often, and I will try to be objective. I have been to many sushi restaurants all over Japan so this this not my first rodeo. We arrived 10 mins early, waited outside ...in the rain and were the second group of two to be led in. As my wife was getting seated, she put her phone on the table and the chef immediately told her to put the phone away. My wife put the phone on her lap and the chef asked her to put the phone on the ledge below the sushi counter. A few minutes later 3 more groups entered the restaurant and one group in particular were obviously local regulars. The local regulars were seated next to my wife and the lady in the group had her phone on the table throughout the meal, taking photos of every piece of sushi whilst the chef said NOTHING! We did not make a scene, finished our dinner and left. If the chef was strict to everyone that would have been fine, the chef must have had unpleasant experiences with non-local guests before and that's why he was up tight; but to receive different treatment is another matter. I booked through TableAll and paid JPY49,500 per person including booking fee, a local booking site Omakase.in showed JPY30,800 per person. The food was fine and the local fish (in particular the sawara and aji) were excellent. We were surprised to see that after the course meal was served the chef entertained a round of a-la-carte ordering with some guests ordering up to 6 additional pieces of sushi (basically the same fish served in different ways), never seen that before in a high-end sushi restaurant.

Visited April 2025