Three styles of sushi restaurants in Japan and how to use them

When eating sushi in Japan, you have three choices.

*You can make your own sushi (at home), but very few people can make legitimate sushi. However, sushi rolls are easy to make. The recipe and method of making sushi rolls is presented in a separate article here.

This article describes the style ordered at sushi restaurants.

CONTENTS

Types of Sushi Restaurants in Japan

Japanese sushi restaurant styles can be generally categorized into three types.

Delivery sushi restaurants
Revolving sushi restaurants
Upscale sushi restaurants

Another type of sushi restaurant always existed in residential areas, and there were always one or two familiar sushi restaurants in town that had been in business for a long time. Whenever there was a celebration, we would have our sushi delivered from one of these sushi restaurants. However, in recent years, these sushi restaurants have been declining due to the advance of delivery services and large-scale conveyor-belt sushi restaurants.

How to Use Sushi Restaurants in Japan

This section describes the use of three different types of sushi restaurants by style.

Cases of using a delivery sushi restaurant

This is used when going out is inconvenient. Especially in Japan, when a large number of people gather for a home party, they order sushi for delivery.

There are many delivery services in Japan. The world-famous Uber eats also has a variety of sushi restaurants registered and available for order.

You can have it delivered to your workplace or school. You can even have it delivered to your hotel when you are traveling. The well-known Uber Eats also offers delivery from a number of sushi restaurants. To browse Uber Eats menus and place orders in Japan, please log in here.

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Uber Eats

By the way, sushi and pizza are the most popular delivery foods in Japan.

Case of using conveyor-belt sushi restaurants

Conveyor-belt sushi restaurants offer a revolutionary ordering system that makes it easy for anyone to eat sushi.

Ordering itself is fun, so it is popular among children.

The efficiency of the system also makes sushi inexpensive, making it popular with families and young groups such as students.

Conveyor-belt sushi restaurants can be found in many prominent locations throughout Japan, such as near major train stations, downtown areas, and in large shopping malls.

▼Video showing the conveyor-belt sushi system (*This is a bit old. It is much more high-tech now)

The case of using an upscale sushi restaurant

High-end sushi restaurants exist only in the larger cities of Japan. And it is located in a quiet and inconspicuous location.

Although it may seem that high-end sushi restaurants are concentrated in Tokyo, in fact, the regions of Japan with the best sushi restaurants are Hokkaido, Toyama, Ishikawa, Niigata, Miyagi, and Shizuoka. If you seek out the famous high-end sushi restaurants in those cities, you can be sure to find the best sushi.

They are not frequented by ordinary Japanese people because they are too expensive.

The people who mainly use high-end sushi restaurants are those who can afford to pay for their company’s expenses.

High-class sushi restaurants are usually ordered as “omakase”.

Omakase” means that you do not order a la carte, but the owner of the restaurant decides the menu at his/her discretion.

The owner chooses the best ingredients at the time and the ingredients that suit the customer’s tastes, so you should be mostly satisfied with what you are served. However, the grade of the food varies from restaurant to restaurant.

The price of an “omakase” order may also be “omakase”. Be aware that the price may be unexpectedly high.

▼There is a video that exaggerates the system of high-end sushi restaurants in Japan. This is just a joke, so please do not refer to it. But it is funny, so I will introduce it to you. It is a scene that Japanese people would know by heart.