Toro Honolulu — Restaurant in Honolulu

We made a reservation for the $100 course. They have $150 and $300 options. After making a reservation they will send a message confirming your choice and share parking information. There’s a parking structure with ample parking (and it’s free for the first two hours). The restaurant is tucked away inside the building, but they have good signage that makes it easy to find.

The omakase meal itself was pretty good with some elements of creative fusion flair. At the time that we’re eating (June 2025), they served us aburi (torched/flame grill) otoro (fatty tuna) with foie gras, which was amazing. I never liked the texture of foie gras, but the torched version was amazing! The fat on fat combination was surprisingly good.

We also had A5 Wagyu with truffle butter. The flavor combination was good, but the Wagyu was slightly chewy, which was interesting considering that it should be mostly fat, and we also noticed that the chef made many tiny cuts into the meat in an effort to “tenderize” it.

We also really enjoyed the shrimp with ikura and dashi agar (jelly). The ikura was really fresh. I liked the idea of the dashi agar, visually stunning, but I’m not 100% convinced by how much flavor it adds as it had a slight bitter aftertaste to it which I felt detracted from the experience.

Everything else was really good and fresh! Had a combination of skipjack tuna, shima aji (striped jack), Hokkaido scallop, spicy tuna on top of crispy rice cake (tuna was really good, the rice cake was also good, could be slightly smaller to accommodate one bite, and the sauce could be slightly less sweet).

We ordered an additional chawanmushi at the end that was pretty good (takes extra 10 min)

Drink: yuzu mint and shiso mocktail. Pretty solid. Would like a little more shiso flavor.

The price point is slightly higher in my experience (maybe it’s standard in Hawaii). We were in and out within an hour. But, overall, a great experience. They also have lunch courses which are more affordable and happy hour ~4-5.30pm (?) (don’t quote me not that) with hot food...

Short version: It was a great experience and the food was great! Chef Nick was fun to talk to. If you have never tried it, share some sake with your chef’s because the dining experience is just more fun.

Full version: Reservations are made via Resy, and letting them know which omakase set you’re choosing ahead of time makes the process when you arrive and dine really quick. Rest send a confirmation text the day before, and reminds you the day of. The business also sends out a text explaining where they are so that you don’t get lost! (For those who are gamers, Toro is located next to the back entrance of Other Realms). 2 hour parking is available at the building, but if you intend to stay longer, it’s $7+ fees. We arrived a few minutes early, and it was a quaint intimate setting inside. There are 10 seats available and that’s it. As we already let the establishment know what we were having via the reservation, we didn’t even look at the menu besides alcohol 🤣. The alcohol list is decent sized and since sake goes well with sushi, we decided on a nice bottle of Hakkaisan Yukimuro, which is apparently a snow aged sake that was really smooth!! Suggestion: share some drinks with the chefs as it makes a nicer dining experience and they talk to you more. Chef Nick was fun to talk to, and we discovered that the more non traditional sushi are his creations as he loves to test many ideas out. Now down to the food! I can’t even explain the food because it was all broke da mouth. All the sushi and the sorbet was part of the $150 omakase except for the ankimo and abalone. My favorites were probably the American Wagyu short rib with black winter truffle butter, spicy ahi on crispy rice, and the Hokkaido scallop Chawanmushi.

We will definitely return to try the $300 omakase in...

Other customers have already left some very long and accurate five-star reviews, especially about the food. I'll just double down on those - this was an amazing experience with truly delicious food. As someone else said, it was worth every penny.

Some info for prospective diners: we went here because our friend recommended it. He had the $100 menu a few weeks ago, but thought the $150 menu would have been better in terms of leaving with a full belly. My wife and I had the $150 menu, and it was perfect. The website explains it (and it might change periodically), but that menu included three starters, eleven main pieces, a roll, miso soup, and a bite of dessert. It's really fun to watch the chefs prepare each dish and then hear where all the ingredients come from (many come from Japan).

Drinks: some other reviewers mentioned BYOB. I'm not sure how recently this occurred, but the restaurant now has a full selection of beer, wine, cocktails, sake, etc. All the drinks I saw were very reasonable priced (i.e., not Waikiki prices).

Parking: if you have a car, it's very easy and convenient to get to and park at Toro. They send a detailed text message before your dinner with pictures and an explanation. There is a garage next to the restaurant and the first two hours of parking are free. If I recall, I think the height limit for the garage is something right around 6 ft, so it might not be feasible if you have a jacked up full size pickup truck. There was a Toyota Tacoma parked right next to us, so smaller pick ups clearly fit. Consider driving by and checking it out if you have a concern.

In summary, I wrote far more than I expected, but this was an amazing restaurant and I think it deserves some ink for other diners who might be curious about it. Go here, you...