Iwashigumi — Restaurant in Kanazawa

What can I say more! Just a wonderful sardine restaurant that makes you feel so special and welcomed. Even if you don’t speak Japanese, this shop got your back! Their English menu has so much efforts in it which makes you think that this restaurant is truly a special restaurant. The young female waitress was super friendly and she was able to speak English.

My wife and I were so surprised to each dish that we tasted. It was an interesting experience regarding sardines!

The chefs seems super professional. They do not prepare sardines in advance due to fast perishment. So you may need to wait each time of food. I am thinking that this restaurant has much better customer service and eyes on details than fine dining places.

I truly wish that this restaurant would have more and more customers. Thank you very much for offering us a wonderful dining experience...

Iwashigumi (いわし組) is an outstanding sardine specialist restaurant in the Katamachi neighborhood of Kanazawa. Sardine sashimi is rare (no pun intended) because the small fish are hard to work with, but the master at this shop pours his soul into the food here. We ordered nearly the entire menu, doubling or tripling on favorites. Cozy, friendly spot with attention to detail including attractive art-filled menu (English available). Their focus is sashimi, but the other dishes don’t slouch, at all. First shot is grilled sardine with big hunk of mentaiko. Loved everything especially the grilled sardine hunks w/ addictive mayo sauce, sardine spine/head chips, fried sardine batons, and, of all things, an iwashi hamburger - the finale was an extremely sardine-y ramen. Great great meal and cheap to boot. Couldn’t be reprised in NYC...

We were hesitant when looking up the restaurant because we haven’t tried fresh Sardines as a main dishes before but we are so glad we came. The food is sensational, we can feel that the food was made out of love and dedication towards sardines. Everything on the menu and in the shop are about Sardines. We can’t highly recommend Iwashigumi more. I would rated it 10/5 if I could. Set menus is recommended but A la Carte is well worth it as well. The price is considered cheap compared to the excellent dishes and the amount of work and love they put into it. We couldn’t order Fresh Sardines sashimi and sushi because when the quality fresh sardines are not available, the chef will refuse to make it, we respect them for that.

Heading back Australia soon but definitely will be back next...