Ogawa, Miami’s newest omakase expertise in Miami’s Litter River district, will make you’re feeling as if you’ve got stepped via a portal into the Land of the Rising Solar. It is a difficult feat to drag off in a metropolis filled with Japanese omakase eating places, however they’ve carried out it proper — whenever you eat right here, you really really feel as if you’re eating within the coronary heart of Osaka.

Though there isn’t a scarcity of omakase experiences in Miami, from opulent sushi speakeasies on Miami Seashore to the one behind a taco store in Wynwood, this one is actually particular.

It is not even essentially the meals that makes eating at Ogawa an expertise in itself. It is the eye to element. Each dish we ordered was nothing wanting luxurious. The sushi, from the fragile child sea bream to the melt-in-your-mouth otoro, was as tender and contemporary as might be. Equally scrumptious had been the slices of A5 Wagyu steak topped with oroshi sauce and shiso flowers and the squid nigiri served with a heaping portion of caviar on high.

The “we’re not in Miami anymore” sensation is heightened by Ogawa’s décor and ambiance. It is the scent of rice vinegar and freshly grated wasabi you detect within the air as you await the following course. It is the comfortable, refined mixture of basic Japanese jazz and lo-fi hip-hop on the stereo, the refined assortment of ceramics, bamboo crafts, ikebana, calligraphy, and art work that grace the partitions. It is the out of doors backyard that is excellent for sipping a whiskey after your meal and the sound of trains passing within the distance — as if the restaurant had been a sushi counter someplace in Japan.

All the above is because of Ogawa’s dedication to authenticity.

The 11-seat restaurant is the work of Alvaro Perez-Miranda, proprietor of Hiyakawa in Wynwood and Wabi Sabi on the Higher Eastside, and grasp sushi chef Masayuki Komatsu, aka “Masa-san.” They selected Little River — “ogawa,” often translated as “stream” or “creek,” is a direct translation into Japanese of the neighborhood’s title — for the restaurant after being approached by Matthew Vander Werff, the developer making an attempt to upscale the world. It is the primary restaurant of its type within the neighborhood.

“Little River is an space that is rising, and I assumed, to be the primary ones there could be impactful,” Perez-Miranda says.

The 2 might effectively know Japanese tradition and delicacies higher than anybody in South Florida. Komatsu, initially from Japan’s gastronomy capital of Osaka, has been plying his craft in Miami for a decade. Perez-Miranda, additionally an artwork seller specializing in conventional Japanese genres like nihonga portray, labored in Japan’s restaurant business for 15 years and was the primary U.S. Latino to be appointed a goodwill ambassador by the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries.

When he moved to Miami in 2015, nevertheless, he discovered town’s Japanese delicacies missing.

“Each time I needed to eat Japanese meals such as you eat in Japan, I could not discover something,” he recollects.

He opened the neighborhood sushi spot Wabi Sabi with chef Shuji Hiyakawa in 2019. The 2 moved on to open the upscale Hiyakawa in 2020 and the informal Midorie in 2021 — at all times chasing the head of authenticity and consistency.

Their dedication to their craft has now been taken additional at Ogawa, the place their m.o. is “no compromise” — they use the highest-quality components they’ll acquire. “I needed to do a Japanese restaurant with an omakase, however the best way it is carried out in Japan,” Perez-Miranda says.

The menu for every night’s seating is set the day earlier than, and the restaurant works with a dealer at Tokyo’s Toyosu wholesale fish market to acquire components which can be in season. There’s supposedly a specific concentrate on merchandise from Ibaraki northeast of Tokyo, together with Wagyu beef and the prefecture’s famed muskmelon, however the meals I ate got here from throughout Japan: maguro (tuna) from Kesennuma, uni (eel) from Hokkaido within the far north, hirasuzuki (blackfin sea perch) from Ehime.

Though there isn’t a set worth or set quantity of programs, diners might anticipate to pay anyplace between $175 to $300 per particular person if having fun with a set menu. Gadgets ordered à la carte vary from $16 to $20.

There’s additionally the uniquely pleasant method of service. Ogawa makes a speciality of kappo delicacies, a mode developed in Komatsu’s hometown of Osaka. Derived from the extra formal kaiseki banquet delicacies, kapo is all about making the client really feel comfy. Like every sushi bar, you watch them put together your meals in entrance of you, expertly slicing off bits of fish for sashimi and nigiri, taking simply the correct amount of marinated rice from a picket container, and putting it delicately in your plate. However the essential distinction is that you would be able to additionally simply, effectively, discuss to the man. The chef consults with the diner, asking him what’s good and what they’re within the temper for. However he additionally entertains the visitors, engages them in dialog, and tells them the place the meals got here from, all whereas ensuring the toro is reduce excellent. You can too order extra meals as soon as the set menu is used up. It is all of the magnificence and finesse of a Jiro Desires of Sushi with the intimacy and homeyness of Midnight Diner.

I lived in Tokyo briefly for a semester in school, and my meal at Ogawa crammed me with a robust, nostalgic craving for the intangible issues that make Japan so distinctive and soothing: refinement, simplicity, and omotenashi. Not often is a dinner so shifting. There are cheaper methods of pretending to go to Japan — Epcot is only a Brightline experience away — however the emotions instilled in me at Ogawa, the methods they may linger, are priceless.

Ogawa. 7223 NW Second Ave., Miami; ogawamiami.com. Reservations can be found through exploretock.com.