Otaru Sushi Bar — Restaurant in New Haven

The sushi here was the freshest we have had since moving from LA, and my wife and I decided to make it a long overdue date night.

We walked up to the restaurant where a sign instructed us to wait for the host. When she opened the door, she looked at us and said, “Have you looked at the menu? We serve sushi. Only sushi. And it is a forty dollar minimum per person so look at the prices now.”

I was shocked. Was there some misunderstanding? I assured her we knew how to read and count and proceeded inside.

As a Yale psychiatrist, I am trained to notice patterns of behavior and be curious about the underlying psychology. As we sat, we observed that she greeted every other guest warmly and none of them received the same warning. Later we saw her checking in on other tables to ask about their experience. She never came to ours.

We could not help but ask ourselves what was the difference. The only one we could find was that we were the only Black guests in the restaurant that night.

When we asked for the check, I quietly told the host that the way she had treated us felt unprofessional. She looked shocked and said she was just trying to be helpful since we were not regulars, insisting, “You are being unfair to me. That is just how you took it.” I calmly repeated that it was unprofessional. She quickly walked away.

As we were leaving, she walked over to a white couple who had arrived after us and asked, “Have you been here before?”

I will leave it to the reader to decide what happened and why...

My wife and I were excited to see this place had opened recently and stopped in after work on a Friday. We were excited to try a new sushi place and I have to say, it is legit. It's actually so good that I can't believe it is here in New Haven. New Haven has plenty of delicious food that I frequently drone on about, but Otaru is in a whole different class of good food. It contends with the best sushi I've ever had, I think you'd have to go to NYC to even get something comparable and you'd be paying twice the price for equal (or worse) quality.

We sat at the counter to really get the 'omakase' experience from the chef. The chef and his wife were very attentive and you really felt like a VIP with each piece of sushi presented, explained, and then enjoyed! It is more expensive than the other sushi places in town, but it is so far above in terms of quality and experience that you really can't complain.

Bottom line, if you want top shelf sushi this is the place...

The menu is small but what they do, they do VERY well. If you are looking for American sushi with all the filler (cucumber, cream cheese, avocado, etc.) this is not your place. I had the Symphony roll (tuna, salmon, and yellowtail). There was zero fishy smell and the meat just melted in my mouth. It was delicious! The dining room is very small but the sushi prep station is on full display and the chefs take great care in each and every order. I didn't sit at the bar but I saw the chefs interacting with those guests and asking a lot of questions about preferences and allergies. The chef that prepared my order delivered it to my table (as opposed to the waitress/hostess) which just thought was a very nice, personal gesture. They were not busy at all (Early on a Wednesday night) so may be a little different when they're busy. Overall a...