We both think this is the best sushi in LA.
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NYC closing in August
competition at the very top end is just too fierce in NYC. LA hasnât quite hit there yet. But might soon ha.
Itâs funny the clientele at high end sushi places in LA and NYC. LA is a proliferation of very wealthy Chinese people at top end omakase and NYC is a lot of finance bros. Canât go to either without being generally surrounded by them.
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Who has the big money varies from place to place. When I went to Sushi Yoshizumi most if not all the other customers seemed like Chinese / Chinese-American techie couples.
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Was at Sawa friday night with an old coworker. Not that itâs as high end as the others but everyone was a very old chinese man on a date with a very young woman
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@PorkyBelly with niece? 
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I havenât gone to sgo with my young fitness model @chrishei yet, here are pics from my last visit with my niece @NYCtoLA
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Dang. You got me food than me. I only got 11 pieces of sushi + one egg when we went end of may
Wasnât as good as I remember from pre Covid but nostalgia is the most deceitful memory
AFAIR, Yohei-san does offer his customers the option to go into extra rounds after the completion of the formal omakase. Is this maybe what happened here?
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correct, everything after dessert were bonus rounds aka porky rounds 
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Thatâs too bad. I have many good memories of Sushi Ginza Onodera in NYC. But I guess thatâs in part because it was always easy to get reservations there when I was in NYC. The LA branch seems to be doing better.
I just went. The sushi was fine but, at this price point, I donât see any reason to go. Price aside, the 2 Michelin stars is baffling â much less 2 stars three years in a row or whatever it is. I donât think Yohei made a single one of my nigiri. The service was good but, as soon as it became clear that I wasnât a whale and wasnât going to splash out on sake, it felt like they wanted me out of there as soon as possible. For example, when I finished my meal, the couple next to me was 3 courses behind. Ordinarily, this wouldnât be a problem â I like a fast meal. But again, I donât recall Yohei making a single one of my nigiri. His assistant was the one who was making and serving me all my nigiri. So whatâs the point of even going?
Go to Kaneyoshi, Morihiro, Mori Nozomi, Shunji, Takeda, or Shin instead. Or even down the street to Matsumoto. The food is flat out better at each of those places. And so are the prices.
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In contrast, I just enjoyed a remarkable and outstanding omakase tonight at Shin Sushi (Encino). Take-san served us some out-of-this-world ishigaki clam, and that trademark fish bone miso broth and kani-tofu otsumame were mindblowing. The man made (and served) every damn piece of heavenly nigiri to our party without any sous chefs. Shin Sushi remains very special.
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Shin is a blast â âveeeery interesting flavor.â I also love the contrast between Take-san and Fumio-san. My experience at SGO aside, weâre very fortunate with the current LA omakase scene â lots of great food, and they all have their own distinctive personality and style.
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Onodera has been outstanding in our past visits and we liked it more than Shin. But itâs been about two years.
We went back for the first time since it lost its second star. We liked it as much as ever. Wonderful.
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Closed. Last day was 5/30/25.
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Have we reached peak Omakase?
I get the sense that this closure is not so much about lack of business as it is about something else. SGO always seemed pretty busy, even on a random Wednesday at 5:30pm or so. The parent organization has a wide swath of corporate interests, and the restaurants are but one part. I can definitely see the Honolulu one staying open (havenât been in a while, depends on the chef, though some good sushi chefs have passed through that branch before). NY closed maybe more for competition, not sure about the LA one. But it didnât seem empty at all whenever I passed by.
They have a lot of business interests and also restaurant concepts, and at least in Japan it seems like kaitenzushi is a recent focus. No doubt their spending power for ingredients was a real force but maybe theyâre just switching up focus a bit, who knows.
Regarding other sushi, thereâs the upcoming Goryukubo / Tsumugu and eventually Noz coming to LA.
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Thanks for the nuanced response, I was curious as to why one of the most well regarded spots closed without much notice (seemingly anyway, maybe regular patrons knew it was closing).
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