For some people, it’s the need for control that prevents them from being able to fully relax and enjoy the dining experience known as omakase. For others, it’s the healthy price tag that comes with the time, labor, and quality of the ingredients that goes into one of these meals. But done right, there is nothing better than just letting go and eating what’s served by the chef.
There’s something magical in the simplicity of the omakase experience. Sometimes it can feel like a classroom, where the chef is the instructor, and you are the student. Other times, it can feel like a party, with everyone in the group raising a glass for a toast contributing to the convivial “we’re all in this together” feeling. Still other times, it can feel like a kind of reverently silent dining experiment. It should feel like a little bit of all of this, but you should always come away feeling the care and hospitality. For me, it is a preferred way of dining. I love dining out and not having to make any decisions at all.
Sushi Kodawari is Kansas City’s newest restaurant to offer the Edomae-style (or sushi made with raw, cooked, or preserved fish from the waters near Tokyo) of sushi service. It’s all about serving food when it is at its best, not when it’s “freshest.” Karson Thompson, the chef/owner, gave up his law career to study sushi making in Japan. He, his wife, and triplets moved to Kansas City to be closer to family and for Thompson to fulfill his dream of opening up his first omakase restaurant.
With only eight seats available and two seatings a night (6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.), four nights a week (Wednesday through Saturday), it can be difficult to snag a seat at Sushi Kodawari, but don’t let that keep you from trying. The menu for each 15-course dinner is unique, designed by Thompson to take you from lightest white fish to more flavorful red and blue fish flown in from Japan and dry-aged in a cabinet on view in the dining room. The process preserves and enhances the natural flavors of each fish, much like it does for beef. The white fish might only be dry-aged for a week, while heartier fish might be treated much longer.
Most courses consist of a single piece of nigari—or raw fish on rice—with a few traditional Japanese dishes sprinkled in—some cooked fish, handrolls, sashimi, and dessert. The price for your omakase experience is $175 per person plus tax, with no service fees or tips accepted. Each reservation requires a $50 deposit that is applied toward your meal. Drinks are additional, and you can choose to do a double omakase, and receive drink pairings with each of your courses, or order a glass or bottle from the sake and wine list to enjoy with your meal.
Assisting Thompson with service is industry veteran Beth Kearns, who has worked at many of Kansas City’s top fine-dining restaurants. Where Thompson is serious, quiet, and perhaps a bit shy, Kearns has a way of drawing him out of his shell to share with guests his own personal story with sushi. It’s a dynamic that builds throughout the night, as Thompson relaxes into the flow of service. You can tell he sometimes gets lost in the process and forgets that he is the star of this show, next to the sushi itself.
The restaurant is located in the heart of the Crossroads Arts District in the Creamery Building, where your experience begins at the front door. Kearns will greet you, leading you into a small waiting area with a colorful fish mural on the wall. Inside the house-like structure, the dining room contains a beautiful Japanese cypress wood bar just beyond the curtains. Guests enjoy a complimentary glass of sake as they wait for all eight diners to arrive. This is not the restaurant to be running late for your reservation. Once dinner begins, it would be hard to get caught up.
Omakase is considered by most Americans as the culinary equivalent to “dinner and a show.” In Japan, this style of meal is eaten mostly in quiet reflection, listening to the chef relay information about each fish you are eating. However, in this country, many don’t like eating in silence. We like to talk to each other and to the chef. Our group was the first seating of the night, and while we started out quiet as a mouse and studiously watching the chef’s every move, as the meal progressed (and the sake flowed) there was more chatter in general.
The meal began with Thompson entering with a large, wooden rice bowl filled with steaming hot sushi rice. We observed as he seasoned it with aged red vinegar and cooled it with a fan as he explained the importance of rice as a foundation for all sushi.
Next, he took his first fish fillet out of a wooden box and placed it on the cutting board, just as we were served our first course. Chawanmushi is a traditional Japanese silky steamed-egg custard, and Thompson served his with enoki mushrooms, spot prawns and scallions—an elegant start. As Thompson sliced the fish, we were served a single salt-and-vinegar potato chip topped with crème fraiche and a briny trout roe that prepared our palates for all the fish that was to follow.
Next came the sashimi courses. Thompson cut and dropped each slice on each of our plates. We sampled red sea bream that tasted so clean it was almost flavorless, followed by a slice of hamachi yellowtail brushed with a bit of soy sauce and topped with freshly grated wasabi. We finished with a belly cut of the hamachi yellowtail dotted with a bit of yuzu koshō, a fermented paste made from chili peppers, yuzu peel, and salt that add a touch of brightness to the delicious melt-in-your mouth texture.
The nigiri followed, a progressive series of fish fillets that were carefully sliced and dabbed with a bit of freshly ground wasabi before he would marry them to a small ball of rice he pressed between two fingers and his palm.
Standout nigiri courses were the aji, or horse mackerel, topped with a punchy ginger and scallion paste. It had a thicker, chewier flesh than the other, more delicate white fish. The bright orange ikura, or salmon roe, was topped with warm sushi rice and eaten with a small handmade spoon. It was like eating small bubbles of seawater that burst in your mouth. The maguro (fatty tuna) and sake (ora king salmon) were each luscious and slick in the mouth with a clean and delicate flavor and hint of wasabi.
There was a tuna handroll, or toro-taku temaki, with a fresh shiso leaf and a slip of pickled daikon radish tucked inside, followed by anago, or sea eel from Japan, which is always served cooked before it is brushed with sweet, dark-brown eel sauce. The texture of the sea eel was light and fluffy, quite unlike the greasy river eel we tend to see served in the U.S.
Dessert began with the tamago, or egg—considered the dessert of the sushi world. Thompson served it as they do in Tokyo, marinated in a sweet syrup, which gave it the texture and taste of French toast. The meal ended with a small bowl of matcha green-tea ice cream sprinkled with cinnamon.
This is not necessarily a personalized omakase experience, but more a collective one. Thompson is serving eight people at a time and everyone is simultaneously enjoying the same dishes, which makes food allergies or special requests almost impossible to accommodate.
Once the meal ended, we each said our goodbyes to the group and to our chef, and floated out into the night, strangers once more. Although we did not know each other’s names, we knew we had experienced something special together at Sushi Kodawari.