Tom Sietsema Dining


Diners ring the grill area at Kushi.


★ ★ (Good/Excellent)


Kushi Izakaya & Sushi 465 K St. NW. 202-682-3123. eatkushi.com.


Open: Lunch 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, noon to 2:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; dinner 5:30 to 11 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday, 5:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. Thursday through Saturday. Major credit cards. Parking lot.


MeTrO: Mount Vernon Square.


Best of two D


worlds at Kushi Gastropub offers sushi, skewers


arren Lee norris was so unsure how Washington diners would accept an izakaya, or Japanese gastropub, that he tacked raw fish and vinegared rice onto his idea for a new restaurant. Sushi, the former Ridgewells


caterer reasoned, would lure customers to Kushi Izakaya & Sushi. If they liked what they saw, maybe they’d come back for kushiyaki, skewered food cooked over a charcoal grill, which he had become smitten with during visits to Tokyo, where his wife, Ari Kushimoto Norris, was raised. Darren Norris needn’t have worried. It turns out there’s a large


audience for everything he’s serving. Some of the Japanese terms might be unfamiliar, but seafood, meat and vegetables transformed by fire, and small plates prepared with prime ingredients, share universal appeal, especially when they’re presented on a popular block in a hot neighborhood. When it opened in the CityVista building this spring, Kushi joined branches of Busboys & Poets and Taylor Gourmet and a sprawling new Safeway in Mount Vernon Square. Minimally accessorized with outsize paper lanterns and sake


barrels, Kushi nonetheless oozes style. Arrivals pass through long linen noren to find a loftlike, putty-colored room dominated by a robata grill on one side and a sushi counter on the other. The space between is filled with tables made from reclaimed barn wood and a glass-wrapped work space for oyster shuckers. Kushi’s entire repertoire is available throughout the 18-foot-high dining


room, which Norris likens to “an amusement park” for customers, although the bars offer diners the bonus of watching their meals made before their eyes. I love the deft knife skills and the ballet of the sushi chefs, identified by their white caps. But I also appreciate the black-hatted tenders of the robata, who are just as nimble around the skewers and the grill stoked with slender batons of Japanese charcoal. Even more, I applaud


what lands on my plate. The sea urchin sushi is a gift from Poseidon, a cross between mousse and the subtle salinity only the ocean can deliver. Extra-fatty tuna is explosively rich, and it rests on a pad of barely warm and comfortably loose rice. All of the usual fish for sushi and sashimi are available, but the changing specials should determine your choices. It’s not every day that you find geoduck, live scallops, fluke fin and baby conch on the same Washington menu. The (Continued on Page 28)


prIceS: Sushi (two pieces) $4- $9; lunch, grilled skewers $4-$12, sushi, sashimi and skewer sets $12- $37; dinner, grilled skewers $3-$14, small plates $3- $35; seven-course (omakase) menu $40.


SOund checK: 74 decibels/Must speak with raised voice.


Tom chats live at 11 a.m. on Wednesdays. Join him and find videos, blog posts and more at washingtonpost. com/


tomsietsema. june 20, 2010 | The WashingTon PosT Magazine 27


PHOTOGRAPH BY SCOTT SUCHMAN


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148  |  Page 149  |  Page 150  |  Page 151  |  Page 152  |  Page 153  |  Page 154  |  Page 155  |  Page 156  |  Page 157  |  Page 158  |  Page 159  |  Page 160  |  Page 161  |  Page 162  |  Page 163  |  Page 164  |  Page 165  |  Page 166  |  Page 167  |  Page 168  |  Page 169  |  Page 170