Restaurant review: Urasawa, Los Angeles

Halfway through dinner at Urasawa, I decided it was the best Japanese meal I was likely to have outside Japan – even at $500 per person. Each mouthful was a delight, whether it came from the same dish or was one of the different sushi that followed the kaiseki menu.

Hiro Urasawa’s menu changes with the seasons but there are constants served throughout the year, albeit varying slightly according to what ingredients are available. One of his classics is thin slices of toro wrapped around monkfish liver and tied with thin slices of white radish, chewy, soft and crunchy all in the same bite, making for a delectable start to the meal.

As the waitress placed a stunning green ceramic bowl, seemingly filled with salmon eggs, in front of me, I wondered at the excess but the roe was laid over an egg custard filled with shiitake mushrooms and shiro ebi (tiny white shrimp from Toyama prefecture).

The dish was a lovely combination of textures, slippery, chewy and softly crunchy, with a nice contrast between the subtle flavour of the custard and the salty roe. This was followed by an elegant lacquered spoon packed with wagyu tartare in one half and caviar in the other, providing an unlikely but very successful pairing of two different mellow flavours and soft textures.

Urasawa writes down the name of every diner as soon as he/she is seated. He then engages in charming banter with his customers throughout the meal without ever losing his concentration. As he put the first sushi piece in front of me, he addressed me by my name and advised me to eat it within seconds.

He served a total of 21 different sushi pieces, some made with fish including needlefish arranged in a beautiful flower-like shape over the rice, others with seafood, including abalone, uni and shiro ebi. Each piece was fabulous.

Everything is beautiful at Urasawa, from the chef’s tools to his traditional Japanese jacket to the ingredients on display – the raw fish against a tall block of ice and the fresh wasabi and yuzu in a lovely jade-coloured ceramic bowl – to his movements, to the glitter of the gold leaf he uses to garnish some dishes.

 A faultless meal, fully justifying the hefty price tag.

Urasawa, 218 North Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90210, tel: +1 310-247 8939.

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