Though it may seem inconceivable now, there was a time before everyone knew what “omakase” meant. The Japanese term, which translates to “I leave the details up to you,” entails letting a sushi chef pick what they know is best and freshest that day, then sitting back and enjoying the culinary ride. Omakase used to be an option for people in the know. Now it’s seemingly the standard, with entire restaurant concepts built around the omakase experience.
As we reach peak omakase, I was delighted to find a new “secret omakase” just outside of San Francisco. The experience made me feel like it was my first time again, when I sat at a chef’s countertop and let them blow my tastebuds away with whatever they wanted to put in front of me.
You’ll find this magical omakase in Tiburon, a quaint little town in Marin County that’s a 15-minute horseshoe drive north of the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, out to the tip of a small peninsula on the bay. Strolling through the seaside town’s tiny center feels like being on Cape Cod. In late 2021, celebrity chef Michael Mina opened the Bungalow Kitchen right on the water and it instantly became the heart of the dining and nightlife scene — and now, it’s the home of Secret Sushi.
On a recent Thursday evening that was especially dark, I struggled to find the front door at Bungalow down a walkway on the side of the building. It already felt like I was on some spiritual journey to find this secret omakase counter. Once inside, there’s a large wraparound bar in the dining room that was totally buzzing with well-dressed locals having cheeky bevs and dinner. Part of me wanted to join them and sip cocktails looking out the window at the fog bank haloing the San Francisco skyline, but I was here on a mission. I weaved my way up the stairs, past a chatty private party in a separate room with a pool table, and found the upstairs bar. Then I squeezed between two large potted plants at what looked like the end of the bar, to reveal a final stretch of the countertop. Behind it, like a sushi omakase oracle, Chef Yukinori Yama greeted me with a smile and gestured to sit down. I had found it.
Before I knew it, a zensai (appetizer) of monkfish liver from Japan with ponzu jelly and green onion, alongside a boiled oyster atop salmon with truffle cream sauce and fried seaweed was placed in front of me. Instantly, the complex aromas were tickling my senses and the textures of the oyster, salmon, crispy nori and smooth sauce made for one of the best single-bite courses I’ve tasted in a long while. Chef Yama explained that all of the ingredients in his omakase are flown in regularly from Japan — one of which also by him personally, but more on that later.
From a Japanese sea bream sashimi course with dashi ponzu, to a miso-broiled sea bass with snap peas, maitake mushrooms and ginger dashi, and the expert layers of a chawanmushi (savory egg custard) with Dungeness crab, salmon caviar, Hokkaido uni, shiitake and truffle dashi, Yama had picked the finest ingredients from his home country. The arc of uniquely aromatic dashi (a stock made of kombu and bonito flakes) was a really nice touch across these first four courses, which preceded a gorgeous Miyazaki A5 Wagyu.
A sushi chef for over 30 years, Yama moved to California nine years ago from Osaka, Japan. He had chef friends who made the jump to America and he hoped to one day have the opportunity to do the same. It all happened when legendary Bay Area sushi chef Ken Tominaga, who died in 2022, came to his restaurant in Osaka and soon plucked Yama to come work with him and Michael Mina at Pabu Izakaya in San Francisco.
“Without Ken-san, I am not in America today,” Yama told me proudly, with the moon rising behind him through the fog — one of the many quintessential North Bay views through Bungalow’s windows. After Pabu, Yama briefly worked at downtown staple Ozumo, and now he’s at the helm of the sushi program at Bungalow. The secret omakase is his baby.
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Can you handle 16 courses of carefully prepared fish? How about 21?If you can score one of the four (of only 12 total; seated thrice a night) omakase seats at the bar top, sitting across from Chef Yama is part of the charm of this experience. I loved chopping it up with him through the seven nigiri courses, having philosophical discussions about the finer points of Hokkaido versus Santa Barbara uni, and seeing him smile at my blissful reaction when I bit into a melt-in-your-mouth otoro (bluefin fatty tuna).
When he gathered how much I loved uni, he scooped an extra bit of it onto my “Yama Bowl” of fatty tuna with a quail egg and caviar. “It’s all only Japanese fish,” he reiterated. “Except for the caviar. That’s local!” (Specifically, Kaluga caviar from Tiburon’s The Caviar Co.) Then for a sea eel nigiri course, he explained how every batch of his eel sauce contains a portion of the base “mother” sauce he started making 20 years ago in Osaka. And I loved thinking about how Yama brought this traditional concoction from Japan on his first flight over, just to make sure he could keep brushing the same exact blend over the eel that he was planning to make in America for years to come.
At the end of it all, this was a wholly unpretentious omakase experience. While you’re in the zone of these casually-paced 13 courses, the two-level restaurant beyond those plants I first walked through hums. At a price of $150, it’s definitely on the more accessible pricing scale of omakase. Even the sake options were straightforward with a few clear choices that were explained to me in a way that didn’t make me feel like a total beginner. It felt like I could loosen my collar a bit here at Bungalow, and I liked that.
What’s more, there’s even the chance you can score a spot without a reservation. Some of the clientele who were there for a drink and dinner in the main dining room decided to walk upstairs like I did, through the two plants — like the last landmark on a treasure hunt — and found the omakase oracle there behind his counter, ready to do his thing.
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