Chicagoans love a hidden gem — which is great, because the city is filled to the brim with them.
We have unassuming stands serving up the best hot dogs in the city. We have out-of-the-way beaches that, if you go at the right time, you’ll have practically all to yourself. (Well, you and that one weird guy who’s always doing sit-ups on the sand for some reason.) We have jazz clubs haunted by Al Capone’s ghost, pop-up comedy shows and a magic lounge hidden in a laundromat.
And, in the case of The Omakase Room, we have a hidden, 10-seat omakase sushi restaurant located in an apartment above Sushi-san’s River North location. Chicago really does have it all.
Spoiler: It’s absolutely worth the trip downtown.
Launched in 2022 by chef partner Kaze Chan, the team at Sushi-san and Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants, joined by master sushi chef Shigeru Kitano, The Omakase Room aims to bring Chicagoans a high-quality, authentically Japanese omakase sushi experience in a non-pretentious, relaxed environment. The restaurant offers two seatings every Thursday through Saturday night, at 5:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.
I snag an 8:30 reservation on a Thursday and force-feed my Chicago Public Schools teacher husband enough sugar-free Red Bull to keep him out late on a weeknight. (The 18-course omakase lasts a little over two hours.)
It’s pouring rain the night we go — at least long enough to soak us both on the mad dash from our 2014 Subaru Forester to the entrance of Sushi-san, the perennially popular downstairs restaurant, with thumping hip hop music and cool twentysomethings wearing tube tops. Embarrassed to embark on a $250 omakase dinner looking like an extra from Titanic, I sneak into Sushi-san’s bathroom to dry off with the wall-mounted hand dryer which is, of course, very demure. (By the time you read this, the phrase “very demure” will probably be an ancient, forgotten relic, having gone the way of the Dodo bird and Barbenheimer, but please know that when I wrote this, it was impossibly cool of me, something even the hip twentysomethings eating spicy tuna maki just outside the door probably would have approved of.)
Moments later, Daniel Bennett, The Omakase Room’s extremely kind and knowledgeable assistant general manager and certified sake professional, meets us at Sushi-san’s host stand, whisking us to the back of the restaurant, past the orange glowing exit sign and up a flight of brightly lit stairs.
As the door opens into The Omakase Room’s lounge, I feel like I know how the little British kids from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe must have felt when they walked into Narnia. It’s a whole new world with a completely different ambiance. The hip hop music has been replaced by chill R&B, and we’re immediately ushered onto a comfortable couch and given complimentary warm towels and a non-alcoholic welcome drink (a dreamy coconut water and pandan concoction that I could have chugged a giant orange Gatorade cooler full of), as the eight other diners for that seating peter in.
Bennett explains to us that The Omakase Room is meant to mimic a dinner party hosted at the chef’s home, with a welcoming, relaxed, communal atmosphere. You enter maybe only knowing one or two people at the table, but as you enjoy a meal together, you connect with your dining partners and leave as a little community.
The dress code is equally relaxed, and diners are welcome to wear whatever they’d like, which our dining group represents well. To our left are two women celebrating their birthdays, dressed to the nines in dresses and strappy heels. Across from them, a couple flips through the extensive whisky list wearing oversized hoodies and denim shorts. Truly anything goes. (As for me, I’m wearing my best Target dress and holding a still-sopping wet reusable shopping bag that I attempted to use as a makeshift umbrella earlier, so I’m not there to judge.)
After a little time in the lounge, a set of big velvet curtains on the wall open up to reveal an intimate dining space, with 10 chairs positioned around the chefs’ station. The room is chic, sexy and clean, but still comfortable — a recurring theme throughout my experience at The Omakase Room. The restaurant always makes you feel like you’re part of something special, without any of the pretension that often comes with high-end restaurants. And absolutely no detail goes unnoticed — they even bring over a small table for me to set my rain-soaked shopping bag/umbrella on. (Look out, Anna Wintour!)
The meal kicks off with a celebratory sake toast, and the two chefs — which that evening were master sushi chef Shigeru Kitano and chef de cuisine Michael Graffeo — cheers each of our glasses individually.
From there, it’s off to the (delicious, detailed, fish-filled) races, with 18 rapid-fire courses, each one better than the last: A creamy, rich, warm Japanese egg custard, topped with uni, snow crab and salmon roe. BAM. A bowl of Tuna Toro Tartare served with a mountain of osteria caviar and a pile of brioche toast. BAM. A selection of delicately garnished fresh sashimi, straight from Tokyo’s legendary Toyosu Fish Market. (The market, in partnership with Martinez Produce and Seafood, makes daily deliveries to the restaurant.)
“I want to feed you all before you get too full,” Chef Graffeo jokes.
Each course is like something from a dream. (Or it would be, if I dreamed about incredible Japanese food, as opposed to my daily “I have to take a final for a class I never actually took” nightmare.)
The pace of the dinner gives you just enough time to enjoy every bite without ever giving you too much time to wonder when the next course is going to show up. Plus, the seating around the kitchen station gives diners a chance to watch the chefs at work as they masterfully slice fish, torch bites and use giant metal chopsticks to place tiny flower garnishes on courses, all while they laugh and chat with guests, answering questions ranging from in-depth inquiries on the species of fish (the diners to my right) to “wait, what’s that?” (me).
The restaurant also offers wine pairings, sake pairings, a combination wine and sake pairing and even a nonalcoholic pairing option. While I don’t take part, the two well-dressed women next to me do, and I have a chance to see Bennett and the team in action, as they explain each wine in engaging, clear ways — even if it’s a little lost on the women who, now a few rounds of the pairing plus some pre-dinner cocktails behind them, begin to announce that they can’t wait to “smoke a J” outside as soon as the dinner’s over. (Which, in a way, is its own kind of pairing.)
Because The Omakase Room’s menu constantly changes — sometimes by the season, sometimes by the day — it would be flat-out rude of me to taunt you with in-depth descriptions of each course, but highlights included:
- Red tilefish in pumpkin sauce, which was so good that the man next to me used his pointer finger to scoop out the remnants at the bottom of the bowl — I get it!
- A Japanese Red King Crab hand roll which actually made my life worse just knowing something that good exists and I can’t have it every day.
- A piece of sanma fish smoked in powder from a 1,000-year-old cedar in Malaysia. (Incredibly, the tree is ethically sourced — chef partner Kaze Chan’s good friend and former colleague lives in Malaysia, and he waits for a branch to fall on its own before turning it into powder and sending it to Chef Chan.)
- A three-course tuna flight that made the wine-drunk women next to me exclaim, “HOLY SHIT.” (I agree with them.)
- The finale, a foie gras ice cream with plum liquor and Kokuto (Japanese black sugar).
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Seven perfect spots, from casual to classyAfter the dinner, before I head back out of the glowing exit sign and into reality, I make another restroom stop — this time to check out The Omakase Room’s state-of-the-art Japanese toilet. (Look, I know some readers will be mad at me for mentioning Japanese toilets in a restaurant write-up, but frankly I think everyone would be more mad at me if they missed out on them!)
I think about how there’s a juxtaposition in there somewhere — how just two hours earlier, I was in the real world, wet and frustrated, willing a hand-dryer to soak the rain off me, but how all of that feels a million miles away in the beautifully created world of The Omakase Room, where even the restrooms are thoughtful, joyous and unpretentious — but frankly, I’m too full of fish to figure it out.
As we make our way back to our car, I see the two well-dressed women from dinner, hunched in an alleyway. They are, indeed, smoking a J.
Dreams really do come true.
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