Kizuna Sushi Bistro — Restaurant in Glen Ellyn

Kizuna is a small, unassuming sushi restaurant nestled in a tiny strip mall and nearly unnoticeable from the road. The interior is tight, but pleasantly decorated and at once you feel at home. After ordering you soon start receiving your dishes and realize that the food here is exceptional and beyond compare. We have been here twice and everything was presented with great skill and care by friendly and knowledgeable staff.

The Salmon Mania are delectable little pockets of fatty salmon belly with a careful balance of spicy, sweet, and sour - they simply melt in your mouth and are delicious - yes, please! The Chirashi is prepared traditionally (the way I like it) with a well thought out selection of fresh fish and accompaniments over a sweet bed of sushi rice. The octopus was a standout as it had the right amount of bite to tenderness with great flavor. Many sushi places never seem to get octopus right, here they do. The Karma roll was interesting with its chewy black rice, combination of garnishes, and a nice side of a sweet and spicy sauce making for a bright and complex flavor once all in your mouth. The typically humble tuna, salmon, and yellowtail sushi is elevated to a level typically found in higher end Japanese restaurants with a light brush of soy sauce over each lightly scored piece of exceptional fish - you do not add anything to this type of sushi and you simply pop the whole thing into your mouth to enjoy the flavors as the sushi chef intended. Even the miso soup and house salad are carefully crafted and are delicious. Oh, and the sushi rice was made perfectly with its subtle sweet and sour flavor and being still a bit warm as it should be. It is clear that the sushi chef here knows his craft well and is well trained in traditional methods as well as being able to improvise new and inventive dishes.

Kizuna is a bit more expensive than nearby sushi joints, but the quality and craftsmanship here are well worth it. I know that we will be back again and again to try everything...

It seems this place is highly regarded online, so we made a point to stop in. We arrived on a Monday about 15 minutes after they opened. The restaurant was kind of dirty, presumably from the night before. There were crumbs and such on the seats; the menus were spotty and sticky. Worse yet, my husband and I both had long strands of human hair in our cloth napkins (I don't know about him, but mine had A LOT). The napkins were probably laundered, but for some reason there was still a ton of hair I had to remove. This all made a pretty bad impression that contributes a lot to my relatively low score.

We were also seated in the dark. The recessed lighting was there, but all turned off. There was some daylight coming in since it was like 3:15pm, but our table was far enough away from the window that it was weirdly dim.

That covers all of the main issues. Otherwise, the service was quick and friendly. The food was also good, to varying degrees. We ordered three different rolls: the Garlic Salmon, the Chill Mango, and the Dragon. That was the order in which they came out, and also a list of the best to the worst (though none were bad). The garlic salmon was actually amazing. So very, very good. The Chill Mango was one of their vegetarian options, and it was reasonably enjoyable, but the garlic salmon was a tough act to follow. Finally, my husband always gets these Dragon roll type things at sushi places, but this was not one of our favorite versions. It was kind of heavy and the flavor just didn't hit the mark for us.

All in all, I don't think we will be back here in a hurry due to the issues I stated, although the menu was pretty interesting overall, and the garlic salmon made an impression. Kaido sushi serves similarly tasty rolls, so I would probably sooner go there when I am needing next...

We were excited to see that this place had such good reviews so figured we would give it a try. The menu also looked pretty unique. Unfortunately we were not very impressed with the food or the service.

When you first walk in the restaurant is very welcoming and cute with rustic wood DIY paneling and a cute swing/seating area.

While the staff was friendly, I have never had to wait that long for 2 sushi rolls and 4 pieces of nigiri.

They did bring out the miso soup and seaweed salad right away. The miso was luke warm and tasted very salty with a hint of miso. The seaweed salad was pretty standard, good flavor but the cucumber in the salad (which made up 80 percent of it) had a hint of mold flavor.

There was also a pretty strong mold flavor in the water which I assume is coming from the ice. May want to clean out the ice machine.

We ordered the crabby crab roll which was ok. Not great but you can’t really go terribly wrong with fried soft shell crab.

We also got the garlic salmon? Can’t remember the name. Also not great.

We then waited another 45 minutes for the nigiri pieces. Salmon and white tuna. The pieces seemed pretty low quality/bad flavor/chewy . I had a bite of each but was honestly afraid to finish them.

They don’t give you wasabi or ginger with the sushi which I am not used to and they drenched the nigiri in what appeared to be a watered down soy sauce?

Not sure where all the 5 star reviews are coming from. Maybe they were...