Sushi is not really my favorite but when we were asked to join some friends to go to Sabi Omakase, we could not say no. Sabi Omakase is a tiny place, and you can easily miss it when walking past it in the middle of Pedersgata. Due to this, I think there were some that got surprised when it got a Michelin star a few years back, but this is not your average sushi place. This is an edomae sushi restaurant and everyone is sitting at the chef’s table.
We got there at 7.30 pm and there is a relaxed atmosphere in the restaurant, with pleasant music, well designed lighting and with only 7 seats around the bar counter. We got a Chandon Garden Spritz as an aperitif and got a hot towel to clean the hands. The first dish was a sort of palate cleanser as we got a hot Suimono slurp soup with king crab, finger lime and seaweed.
Then the show started with slicing of the fish fillets, grating of wasabi from Iceland on a shark skin grater and pouring of a white wine from Burgundy. The first nigiri this evening was scallops. Scallops are lovely and they are delicious both raw and fried. Here it was just served with some wasabi, some lime and we just used our hands to eat it. And we continued with nigiris with squid, yellow tail tuna, cod, halibut, and salmon – with various topping. The salmon was amazing with an incredible tender structure and topped with wild garlic (ramsløk).
We continued with nigiris with mackerel and dried seaweed, trout from Sirdal that were lightly torched, shrimp and langoustine. We took a break from the nigiris and had variations of tuna served white asparagus, raw shrimp, salmon roe, sea urchin and caviar – what a beautiful dish! Next up was tuna and salmon tartar served like a taco as it came in a seaweed leaf. I would have enjoyed this in a smaller portion as the fish tartar is something that I’m not very used to. The eel from nearby Ålgård was delicious – it got some sort of glaze and was lightly torched.
We got a small piece of omelet before we moved to a wild boar nigiri and got a glass of Brunello di Montalcino, reindeer with a turnip topping and rounded of the meat section with wagyu gunkan! For dessert we got a bit of yuzu sorbet served with some Umeshu (plum liqueur). During the meal we also got Veuve Clicquot Extra Brut Extra Old, Dom Perignon 2012 and Nikolaihof Steiner Hund Riesling.
This was a lovely experience from the moment we walked in, to the time we left. It is fantastic to witness the craftmanship of the chefs and how they turned good ingredients into small pieces of edible art! This is sushi fine dining, so it does come at a cost as the set menu cost 1950 kr (200 USD) and wine pairing is 1800 kr (185 USD). If you want the celebrate a special occasion or if you want to celebrate life, this is truly an experience! Remember to book a table as there are few seats!
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