ARI Sushi — Restaurant in Phoenix

ANY place that has my name in it's name is awesome.

We've been hearing about this place for months. Reading the Yelp reviews and seeing the sheer volume of positive reviews was making me doubt the just how accurate it could be. Well, we finally had the opportunity to visit tonight.

I had reservations, fortunately. For a Wednesday night, there were already people lined up to get a seat. We got seated right away.

Yes.. get reservations!

I'm not going to be verbose and echo what others have said here. But, this is not a stretch to say this is the finest sushi in Happy Valley. The other preparers are good, but.. its noticeably less than the food prepared by the owner's hand.

Let's just say sitting at a table here is like sitting a the owner's sushi bar. Its.. amazing. Just absolutely amazing!

We tried some staples: tuna, salmon, yellowtail. All fresh and prepared beautifully. My seeing eye dog got the chirashi deluxe bowl and we could only STARE at its beauty awhile before digging in!

I realize a great metric to judge the freshness of fish and the skill of the preparer is to try Uni (Sea Urchin). I've had numerous bad experiences trying Uni in the past, though I was talked into trying a piece of Uni sashimi tonight. Oh my GOD! Its texture, subtle flavor and freshness was wholly unexpected. I would say this is a MUST try for anyone visiting. It really lauds the quality of fish here!

We tried a shiso-plum roll. Delicious!

Already wrote more than I intended, but I'm going to close and say that the overwhelming positive reviews on Yelp are not exaggerations or "hive mind" agreement. This is as...

ARI Sushi in Cave Creek used to be our favorite sushi spot in the area, however things have really gone down hill in the past month. We think there’s been in a change in staff. We usually go every week. The past two visits we have had have been awful! The first terrible experience was two weeks ago we walked in at about 7:45pm on a Thursday and the place was a mess, every table was dirty and we weren’t sure where to sit so we just sat a messy spot at the sushi bar. Then after sitting for about 10 mins the women waitress came up to us and ordered us to move to a different spot because she didn’t have time to clean that spot. We did as we were told and switched spots, sat and waited for another 15 mins with no service, finally got up and left. The second visit this past Thursday (same waitress) no one was in the restaurant, my boyfriend ordered 6 different types of regular sashimi and my other friend ordered a sushi bomb. We think the orders got mixed up because my boyfriends sashimi was caked with garlic sauce but the waitress insisted it was correct. It should have just been plain but it wasn’t, then on top of that she missed one of our sushi roll orders, which is weird because they have you write it on paper and she confirmed our order at the table but never delivered. We are really sad the service has gone down hill and now have to find a...

I recently dined at Ari Sushi and Grill, and unfortunately, it did not meet expectations. This visit was prompted by a gift card, which turned out to be more of a hassle than a treat. Despite the gift card having no expiration date and matching the restaurant's name and address, the manager refused to accept it, stating that the gift card was issued by the previous owner. They cited an inability to verify previous gift cards as the reason, which I find troubling. When acquiring a business, it seems reasonable that the new owners would honor past obligations, so this situation felt quite frustrating. The dining experience was also a disappointment. The restaurant added a 20% gratuity to the bill, which I found unwarranted given the subpar service we received. The staff took our order and delivered the food but failed to check in on us throughout the meal. Our drinks went unrefilled, and after we finished eating, we were left waiting for 15-20 minutes before finally having to flag someone down just to get the check. If you are going to add gratuity to the bill, there should be costumer service standards that match. Overall, the combination of poor service and the handling of the gift card situation left a sour taste. Based on this experience, I cannot recommend this establishment and will not...