At first glance, dining at Aburi Hana reminded me of Tokyo. The restaurant’s entrance is tucked amongst an alleyway on Yorkville and situated downstairs in the basement. It was Tokyo all over again – locating the establishment after arriving at the address.

Yet, after checking in with the hostess, it felt like arriving at a spa. We were five minutes early, so they sat us in a small lounge playing tranquil music with a floral scent permeating the air. When we finally sat down at the “chef’s counter”, the L shaped dining area allowed us to see the kitchen but felt removed from the action. It’s the only chef’s counter where the chef didn’t even acknowledge the diners – not as a whole and definitely not intimately.

And so, we settle in for the 8-course tasting menu ($300 per person) and 6-drink pairing ($150 per person) as different staff come and went to present items. Everyone was polite and friendly but also seemed to be regurgitating a well rehearsed script. It’s felt oddly formal even as I tried cracking jokes with them.

Oh well, I’m here for the food. The meal starts with the lobster usuimame a piece of barely cooked lobster wrapped around a delicate fish paste that’s well… fishy. A swig of water helps dissipate the bad taste in my mouth as does drinking the silky sweet pea infused dashi at the bottom of the bowl. I even admire the cute bird carved from an heirloom carrot before popping it into my mouth and enjoying the sweetness.

The meal improves as the otoro and caviar sushi monaka is presented. The crispy mochi wafer is filled with a layer of well vinegared sushi rice and topped with tuna belly, pickled daikon, creamy dollops of uni (?), and of hefty teaspoon of caviar. Each bite is deliciously fresh and flavourful.

It’s then a glass of hot sake is poured for the lamb yuba, a cube of four-hour braised lamb belly topped with silky layers of yuba mixed with Japanese mustard. It’s a dish that goes well with the theme of the “early spring” menu: a reminder that sometimes in the spring, a hit of winter comes back, and you’ll want something hearty.

I’ve never liked flowers, but the maguro flower is one I’d love to get. The rose petals, made from two type of lean tuna, sit on a bed of grated radish. The tender aged tuna goes wonderfully with the thickened daikon soy and scallion oil that surrounds the plate. I can see why this is considered a timeless dish, beautiful to look at and a treat to eat.

Every restaurant seems to be doing the flash fried scale-on amadai. Don’t get me wrong, I love the dish and am not complaining, but it’s such a fan favourite that it’s gracing everyone’s menu. Aburi Hana creates an amadai cauliflower, where the tilefish is charbroiled then flash fried. We’re told that if we want a spoon to enjoy the dashi and cauliflower sauce at the end to just ask. I got it right at the beginning and was glad that I could have a spoon of the savoury sauce with every taste of the fish.

My heart went a flutter seeing the kamo akamiso containing two of my favourite ingredients – roasted duck and maitake mushroom – on one plate. While the fowl is a touch chewy, it’s nonetheless flavourful from being smoked and the skin having lovely crispiness. You really need a strong protein to hold up against the deep rich miso sauce, that gives the dish a savoury taste that’s balanced off by a sweet burst from the honey pearls. My only complaint is the wine pairing, which tasted off and was much too light for the dish.

Aburi Hana ends with what they think is their WOW dish, the wagyu uni. Essentially, a roll of sushi rice topped with tons of uni, wagyu, and black truffle shavings, I can see it’s an expensive dish. But expensive ingredients don’t always make for a delicious dish. Firstly, the seared on “just one side” wagyu needed blowtorching before serving as cold fatty beef is not for me. When something is so fat, I find it best served hot so the blubber melts. After all, bacon is also fat and does anyone want to eat raw bacon?

We’re then told it’s been cut into two to help us eat the roll. If that’s the case, it’d be even better cut into four for more manageable bites. Ever try to shove a Twinkie sized item wrapped with chewy meat and wispy shavings in your mouth? It isn’t pretty or easy. Alas, the dish was a lot of flash, but no wow.

If anything, what I enjoyed most was the shot glass of condensed Kyoto miso soup included as the chaser. The thick umami broth was tasty and special.

How the chocolate Japanese ginger dessert came to be Aburi Hana’s most “timeless” dessert is beyond me. Ultimately, it’s a fluffy flourless chocolate cake topped with ginger crème anglaise and cubes of poached pear. I like to think it’s Chef Nakagawa’s way of leaning into showcasing local Canadian ingredients but then am told that the chocolate comes from Madagascar. It was a weird ending for a kaiseki meal.

I much preferred the yuzu macaron and caramel tuille petit fours that ended the dinner. Certainly, more French than Japanese, but at least better than something I could have ordered at Moxies.   

As much as I’ve pointed out the flaws of some dishes, there were also some incredible ones in the meal (I would love to eat the monaka and maguro flower again). And while there was little chef interaction at the “Chef’s counter”, Aburi Hana offers attentive service – my water glass was never more than two inches empty; chopsticks were replaced if there’s even a drop of sauce left; and they even replaced the toothpick dish for my Manhattan just because it wasn’t shiny enough.

Omakase is like the ramen craze from a decade ago. Every season I hear about another Japanese restaurant offering a chef’s menu – some at $100 or less, while others in the hundreds of dollars. It’s difficult to decipher which are good, the options seem endless.

I’ve heard of Sushi Yugen and their $98 main counter omakase and determined it’s a place that maybe I’d visit. It wasn’t until a friend who indulges in a lot of fine dining mentioned the restaurant, giving their chef’s table menu ($275/person) a high recommendation that I finally booked a reservation. And I was not disappointed.

The higher price point gets you into a more intimate room where Master Chef Kyohei Igarashi personally prepares the meal. Igarashi spent 15 years in Japan, learning the craft at high-end sushi and kaiseki places, before finally settling into a Michelin starred restaurant where he spent another seven years.

Indeed, the omakase menu showcases his background, starting off with six kaiseki dishes before the nine pieces of nigiri are presented. He comes out shyly, his accomplishments touted by a translator, and immediately launches into squaring off fish filets so the slices end up all evenly presented amongst the diners.

Our winter menu begins with a hot bowl of broth. Japanese turnip is cooked and then likely pulverized so it melts throughout the soup, causing it to thicken a bit. I would have thought the monk fish liver and leeks would be strong, but somehow the addition of yuzu mellows the ingredients and ties everything together.

Sushi Yugen serves a menu worthy of a Scandinavian spa as it goes from hot to a cold plunge. A bowl of fluke arrives in a beautiful ice dome doused in a special soy-based sauce and covered with black truffle shavings. The delicate white fish allows the truffle’s flavours to be prominently featured. The combination of meaty fish and the fungi’s earthiness is an interesting flavour profile that somehow works.

A bowl of soumen arrives adorn with edible flowers and thinly julienned Japanese ginger, sitting in a three-fish broth (bonito, tuna, sardine). Normally, the bowl of noodles has a deep savoury taste. Sushi Yugen’s still has that element, but the floral and ginger finish gives the silky noodles a bright burst… almost like that pop of basil on a gooey cheesy pizza.

Steaming sauce is brought to the table and quickly ladled into individual bowls to cook the seabream table side and create Yugen’s version of shabu shabu. While the rich soy-based broth was too tad salty to finish, it helped flavour the fish, which was just cooked through remaining flaky and tender. Make sure to use some of the yuzu chili paste, it’s such a great condiment that I want to use on everything.

Being Chinese, I’ve had my fair share of abalone, but having it fresh was a completely different experience. Chef Igarashi trims off the gills and liver, using them to create a thick rich sauce. Meanwhile, the meaty part of the sea creature was simply sliced and more tender and sweeter than my past experiences. We’re advised to leave some of the sauce in the bowl, at which point, Igarashi places some rice so we can mix it into the rich sauce and finish it off.

The uni rice bowl was like an over-the-top seafood risotto, the uni sushi rice adorned with chopped fatty tuna, ringed with briny fish roe, and then topped with caviar. Looking at it, you’d think it would be so rich and decadent, but surprisingly the vinegar in the rice cuts through it to make it lighter than you’d expect, while still having a powerful taste of the sea (in a good way) and a lovely creaminess.

After the last flavourful kaiseki dish, the nigiri begins, but not before a big pile of chopped ginger helps cleanse the palette. Cut into smaller pieces, I enjoyed the little bits that helped provide a refresher without being too much.

The nigiri starts with a piece of filefish (kawahagi) adorned with its liver. It’s meaty and creamy, but also lightened with the heavily vinegared rice that’s made with a combination of three vinegars.

I had the cleanest tasting scallop at Sushi Yugen, it’s sweet without an ounce of gumminess. When pressed, Chef Kyohei Igarashi did explain the three-step process he uses to ensure it’s so silky and fresh. I promised I wouldn’t give away his trade secrets, so you’ll have to ask him yourself.

The saba was flavourful with a pop of freshness, despite not being heavily loaded with green onion and ginger. Left neutral it was still delicious.

A trio of tuna arrives afterwards with the lean akami being marinated so it was flavourful, especially brushed with an extra bit of sauce.

Indeed, the fattier tunas were decadent. I was surprised by how soft and buttery the chutoro was already, to a level that made the otoro seem not as different.

A tray of hot charcoal arrives for the next piece. They are used to sear the top of the nodoguro saikyozuke, a black throat seaperch to crisp up the skin and emit an intoxicating aroma that reminds me of Japanese barbeque. The fish almost has a unagi (eel) consistency, delicate and soft, and very flavourful as it was already marinated in miso, but with a fresher finish.

The anago or conger eel was tasty, but it’s hard to follow the delicious seaperch. Nonetheless, the eel was hot and meaty and has that slight sweetness that’s synonymous with eel without being too sugary.

Yugen’s tamago was cake-like in consistency with an almost savoury finish. I only wish the piece was larger and served warm.

Our meal ends with another bowl of piping hot soup, this time the traditional miso consisting of a rich broth with finely chopped seaweed.

The dessert leans towards kaiseki preparations again. Instead of the typical musk melon, ice cream, or mochi, Yugen presents a beautifully prepared fruit jelly topped with white bean paste dusted with matcha powder and adorned with a salted Sakura flower. What a beautiful finish.

Summing up Igarashi’s menu, I’m impressed by how well he balances rich ingredients to create a dish that still has a freshness to it… I left satisfied but not feeling heavy. Armed with our remaining champagne, we’re invited to their “patio” in the lobby, where we could finish the drinks without being rushed to leave.

Have a glance at Toronto’s Michelin list and you’ll find a host of Japanese restaurants earning stars, including Sushi Masaki Saito who claimed the city’s only two-star ranking. Give it a year or two, but I sense the newly opened Kappo Sato will join the list as well.

Like the other contenders, Kappo Sato serves an omakase menu offered at two price points, $260 and $320, the later includes an additional sashimi platter and sake steamed fish. Both courses, while delicious, weren’t the highlight of my meal, so if you have a dainty appetite the $260 option will leave you satisfied.

With sixteen courses, the $320 omakase left me pleasantly full. To start, pieces of skinless fried eggplant that were nice and creamy. Although, it would be even better served warm, especially when topped with cold uni and caviar. Paired with cubes of sweet poached lobster, the “small” seasonal dish was wonderfully decadent, just a taste of the things to come.

More uni followed in the appetizer platter. In this case, the sea urchin mixed with yuba or thin sheets of soy that’s formed in the tofu making process. The two are a good combination, the silkiness of the tofu skin glides across the tongue capturing the flavourful savoury gelee while mixed with the creamy uni. The wasabi adds a spike of spice that’s surprisingly powerful for the miniscule portion of the condiment.

The cool yuba complimented the hot fried tile fish, a bite of meaty whitefish with crunchy deep-fried scales. The fish is cooled down with grated radish and a carefully split snap pea garnishes the dish for colour.

Sato’s sashimi course is very different, the fish adorned with other ingredients rather than leaving the seafood plain. The sea eel was topped with plum paste and tangy sisho flower and the lean 10-day aged tuna with Japanese mountain yam and egg yolk. Some of it works - like the plum paste and sisho flower – adding a refreshing element to the fish, others don’t - like the whipped mountain yam and egg yolk – creating something with the consistency of slime.

The nyumen or soup course features a bowl of dashi filled with silky delicious somen noodles. The slice of sea bream was good, but I found its softness too close to the texture of the noodles and would have liked a protein that had some bite or crunch.

We’re told what makes kappo cooking different is that the chef cooks in front you, rather than preparing ingredients in a behind-the-scenes kitchen and merely assembling dishes at the counter. The tempura course highlights the concept best as each of the three items were individually fried and presented.

Three condiments - lemon, salt, and ponzu – provides flavour to the tempura. Don’t worry, you’ll be given instructions on what to use with each item. We’re told to use the lemon and salt for half of the sweet young swordfish and then the ponzu for the second half. They should be more specific on which side of the fish to use each on as the ponzu would have better masked the slight bitterness of the head, while the lemon and salt would let the freshness of the body and tail portion shine. Sadly, I swapped the two.  

Seasonal vegetables of asparagus and fava beans follow, both just cooked through and paired nicely with the ponzu.  

Yet it’s the finisher that really excites, a meaty raw-in-the-middle scallop wrapped in sisho leaf that’s sweet and fragrant. It does need to be drained longer so the batter remains crispy, and I’d suggest sprinkling the salt on (rather than dipping the scallop into the salt) to avoid having it slide out of the tempura coating.

Kappo Sato sets up the meal with a host of video worthy shots, the first being the broiled smoked dish where a gleaming dome was filled with smoke and the cover removed table side. Despite all the fume, the flavours just singed the fish with a smoky essence, the centre of bonito and tuna still tasted neutral.

We’re told the tuna is a lean variety, but it’s so nicely marbled that it can match any otoro, flooding my mouth with a sweet richness. Crispy arrow root chips are given to help cleanse the palette but could easily make for an addictive tv-side snack.

Like the sashimi, Sato’s sushi were beautiful flavourful bites, the bluefish topped with shallot, scallion, and wasabi with the rice nicely warmed. Personally, I would tone down shallot as it was a tad pungent for the fish, nonetheless it was still tasty.

The saba hand roll was served taco style, the rice and fish sandwiched between sisho and crispy seaweed. Another inventively flavourful dish that’s different from what you’d normally receive. It’d be even better if there was a bit of glaze put onto the mackerel.

Sitting in a sweetened vinegar, the mozuku seaweed was silky and reminded me of fat choi but milder and more delicate. It made for a refreshing palette cleanser before the richer grilled unagi, which was lightly brushed with a sweet and savoury glaze. Slightly crispy around the edges, the freshwater eel went nicely with the sansho pepper leaf and wasabi.

If there was any alcohol used in the sake-steamed red snapper it must have evaporated in the cooking process as there wasn’t much flavour to the fish and napa cabbage. Hence, the dish really relied on the house-made ponzu dipping sauce. I like the concept of the dish, but it could have been pulled out of the oven earlier as the fish was a tad overdone.

Two types of tofu follow, the first featured in the cold dish and made with sesame so it had a rich nutty essence. The addition of Sakura, mushroom, and dried shrimp makes for a fragrant bite, although I did find the dried shrimp a bit overpowering with the tofu.  

The second traditional soy tofu sat under a mound of lightly cooked wagyu in a beef consommé. I normally love wagyu but being poached in broth doesn’t do it justice as everything merely tastes oily. My friend described it best as saying it’s like having a non-crispy bacon soup. Should they want to keep it in slices, rolling the beef around asparagus, enoki, or white chives would have been a better choice.

I kept eyeing the copper domes sitting on cooking elements by our counter. Its contents were finally revealed in our last savoury course as the seafood pot-cooked rice. Just close your eyes and inhale as the cover is lifted as the sweet seafood aroma of cooked crustaceans is so intoxicating.

Cooked with dashi the sticky rice became fluffy but still firm, almost like a drier risotto. Studded with clams, rehydrated shrimp, and fish the rice was already teeming with seafood essence but made even richer with a generous portion of ikura (salmon roe). At Kappo Sato you won’t leave hungry because a second helping of rice is available and offered. This was all washed down with a hot mild miso soup.

Just save room for dessert as all three courses were delicious. Firstly, a slice of musk melon that’s so sweet and refreshing. Its sweetness is contrasted by a glass of hot tea that’s so wonderful to sip on after a filling meal.

All the while, an ice cream machine sits on the counter whirling around and holding the second dessert, a freshly made soymilk ice cream. The cold soft serve was paired with azuki bean paste and a matcha shortbread cookie. While there’s a light sweetness to the dish, we’re given a tiny vessel of brown sugar syrup to add to the soymilk dessert to our liking. Use it, I love how it enhanced the bean and ice cream’s flavours.

To end, a strawberry daifuku that’s a mound of azuki with sweet strawberry pieces topped with a delicate sheet of soft mochi. Savour the single kuromame, a sweet black soybean, topping to daifuku that breaks apart to reveal a smooth beany centre. It’s served with another matcha tea, this time light and frothy so there’s a latte quality to the drink minus the dairy.

Aside from his culinary training, Chef Takeshi Sato achieved other accomplishments including being a sake sommelier and qualified to prepare a Japanese tea ceremony – hence the final two cups of matcha served with dessert. He jokingly says he loves drinking, another common theme that seems to run through the upscale Japanese chefs of Toronto.

Chef Sato leads an all-female kitchen brigade who artfully creates and plates the dishes. Takeshi has decades of cooking experience from working in a Michelin restaurant in Tokyo, helming Toronto’s Zen restaurant, and most recently being the official chef of the Japanese Consulate General in Toronto. Now it’s his turn to be an owner of a restaurant in his name, when will his star come?