Sugita

Twelve years before the counter

The sardine is sliced, layered, and brought back to balance with ginger and chive. Takaaki Sugita, Chef and Owner at Sugita in Tokyo, works that gesture from behind the counter, where the fish, the shari, and the guest meet at the same temperature. His apprenticeship began after high school at Nihonbashi’s Miyakozushi and lasted 12 years, the kind of time that leaves a method in the hands before it becomes a style. Born in 1973 in Chiba Prefecture, he took over a branch at age 30 as Nihonbashi Tachibanacho Miyakozushi in 2003, then rebuilt the house in 2015 as Nihonbashi Kakigaracho Sugita in Tokyo’s Chuo-ku.

The lineage here is not presented as nostalgia. Sugita keeps it at the bench. The work is traditional Edomae sushi, with preservation, seasoning, temperature, and pressure used as tools rather than ornament. A Michelin star came to Nihonbashi Kakigaracho Sugita in 2017, but the more durable record is the daily discipline of a nine-seat counter, where Sugita serves each piece himself and the meal moves by his hands.

Balance cut into the fish

The omakase begins with tsumami before the nigiri sequence, and the architecture matters because Sugita uses the early plates to tune the room. Monkfish liver, sweet scallop, grilled fish, and other seasonal preparations set the palate before the rice becomes the measure. The house is known for sardine and chive maki, monkfish liver, and conger eel; each depends less on rarity than on the way a familiar ingredient is handled.

For fatty iwashi, Sugita does not let the oil carry the bite by itself. He cuts and layers the sardine, brings in ginger-chive paste, and sets it against vinegared rice so the piece lands as one unit. Gizzard shad relies on salting and aging. Anago closes with a choice of shio or nitsume, salt or sauce, a small decision that changes the finish without changing the grammar of the meal. Sake sits close to the food, especially with monkfish liver and salmon roe, and Sugita checks the pace before the room turns fully to nigiri.

Nine seats in Yoshino hinoki

The room gives almost nothing away that the counter does not need. Nine seats face a gently curving run of Yoshino hinoki, with white linen, few ceramics, and a quiet that sharpens small sounds: the wetting of the hands, the movement of a blade, the setting down of a piece before it warms past its moment. The address is in Nihonbashi Kakigaracho, on a basement floor, yet the feeling is not hidden so much as narrowed. The pass is the room.

Guests sit close enough to watch Sugita’s rhythm without turning the meal into performance. The atmosphere can feel tense, then suddenly warm when he speaks across the counter in his deep, storyteller’s voice. That tension is part of the craft. Takaaki Sugita keeps attention on the rice, the fish, the timing, and the conger eel.