There’s a Japanese phrase, “kokyou ni nisjiki wo kazaeru”, which roughly interprets as “return dwelling with glory”. It’s the phrase chef Makoto Okuwa had in his head when he got here again to Washington D.C. to open Love, Makoto. On a current journey to Washington, D.C to expertise the town and evaluate The Westin DC Downtown, we had time to go to Love, Makoto to expertise their Omakase Categorical lunch menu.
Positioned off Massachusetts Avenue NW, this 20,000 sq ft Japanese meals corridor is not like anything within the metropolis. Damaged into 4 completely different eating experiences, all tied collectively by a protracted pink hallway impressed by the torii gates of Kyoto’s Fushimi Inari shrine. Pricey Sushi specialises in omakase, celebrating each conventional takes on sushi. Beloved BBQ, a high-end yakiniku steakhouse with smokeless grills on the centre of every desk the place diners can grill their very own Japanese A5 Wagyu and American-raised beef. Hiya Izakaya, a high-energy Japanese bar with whisky highballs and different impressed cocktails plus sake, beer and wine. Japanese bar meals on supply embrace skewers and bites ready over a robata grill, and Love on the Run, the latest addition, a fast-casual spot serving fried rooster sandwiches, ramen, sushi rolls, salads, dumplings, soba, udon, ramen and their well-known heart-shaped doughnuts.
Chef Makoto Okuwa’s profession began in Japan, the place he spent ten years coaching underneath grasp sushi cooks from the age of 15 earlier than transferring to Washington, D.C. Right here, he secured his first job at Sushi Taro in Dupont Circle, and some years later, left to work with Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto. Chef Makoto would ultimately assume the position of head sushi chef at Morimoto’s flagship in Philadelphia, in addition to at his outpost in New York. Two years later, he fulfilled a lifelong dream of opening his personal restaurant, Sashi Sushi + Sake Lounge in Manhattan Seaside after which he went on to open eating places in Miami, Mexico Metropolis, Panama, and São Paulo earlier than coming full circle again to the capital. Partnering with restaurateurs Eric Eden and chef David Deshaies, who run L’Ardente (a favorite of Barack Obama’s) subsequent door, Love, Makoto opened in 2023 within the rising Capitol Crossing.
Pricey Sushi is a vivid open house with gentle uncooked wood furnishings, virtually Scandi in design, sitting in opposition to Prussian blue banquette seating which curves alongside one aspect. Huge linen shades dangle above, whereas a sushi bar runs in opposition to the window.
Right here it’s all concerning the omakase; the whole lot is believed out in exact element, the menu offered in typewriter font as if maybe an outdated love letter. Ceramic soy sauce dishes reveal a coronary heart when they’re crammed. A set of iwai-bashi chopsticks clothes the desk alongside a linen serviette, and a dish of ginger arrives with a quenelle of freshly grated wasabi sitting in ying and yang concord.
We begin with a lacquered field of edamame and a coated bowl of hatcho miso soup, the miso’s umami complexity leaving you yearning for extra. Two hand rolls are then offered on a wood rack. The brand new and old style format, a signature of Chef Okuwa’s cooking, is nearly current within the white soy paper on the left and the basic nori wrapping on the suitable. The left full of spicy tuna with jalapeno, wasabi, cucumber and soy, whereas the nori swaps a scrumptious baked crab filling and dynamite sauce.
Following this, sushi arrives on a single ceramic plate, eaten in a clockwise rotation, beginning with Sakura tai snapper with kombu oil and sesame. Then King salmon with ponzu and sakura salt, completed with sesame. Bluefin tuna with soy marinade and wasabi, Hamachi with gentle soy and yuzu salt, topped with a confetti of citrus and dried flowers, and O-toro, a fatty tuna, completed with home soy and jalapeño koji.
Consuming as a bunch, we additionally ordered a couple of dishes to share. The Hamachi with serrano chilli arrives as 4 thick slices of yellowtail laid out with rounds of recent serrano on every. A spicy cucumber with shiso, the cucumbers smashed somewhat than sliced, wearing chilli oil and sesame, topped with crispy shallots, dried nori. The zuke bluefin tuna with shiso ponzu, comes as 4 slices of soy-marinated bluefin in a shallow ponzu bathtub, scattered with pickled shallots, toasted sesame, shiso and tiny purple flowers.
The wagyu fried rice deserves a paragraph of its personal, partly for the way it tastes and partly for the way it arrives. The bowl involves the desk trying austere, diced wagyu organized in a hoop round a trembling onsen egg, the entire thing buried in katsuobushi flakes. The server then mixes it in ceremonial trend, folding the egg by way of the rice and meat till the entire thing turns into one thing richer and extra yielding than the sum of its components.
The lunch closed with cherry creamsicles, served nonetheless frozen on a wood board, cherry blossom at nightfall in colouring and drizzled with frozen berry coulis.
Remaining Ideas
Pricey Sushi is open 11 am–2 pm and 5–10 pm day by day with Omakase priced at $85 per individual, $45 for lunch and à la carte gadgets starting from $6–$45, appropriate on the time of writing.
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