About Restaurant Openings Around DC
A guide to the newest places to eat and drink.
Sushi Gaku. 1338 Wisconsin Ave., NW
Chef Yoshi Ota spent eight years catering to the downtown office crowds at Sushi Gakyu. After closing the restaurant at the end of last year, he’s moved to Georgetown to open Sushi Gaku (he dropped the “y” because customers were always mispronouncing the name). The new space, opening today, offers a fryer and grill that will allow Ota to expand the offerings beyond sushi. But sushi will still very much be the focus with a variety of lesser-seen styles plus an omakase option.
Ota started working in sushi restaurants in his native Japan at age 18, and used to run his own place in Tokyo’s Ginza neighborhood. He came to DC to partner in Kushi, the short-lived but influential sushi and izakaya restaurant, before moving on to Sushiko and then opening Yuzu in Bethesda in 2013.
At Sushi Gaku, Ota will serve grilled mackerel, miso black cod, shrimp tempura, and wagyu beef seared on hot stones. For nigiri, he seasons the rice with a dark vinegar and plans to dry-age some of the fish. There’s also a range of maki rolls and sushi and sashimi sets. At the same time, Ota hopes to introduce diners to other types of sushi beyond the typical Edo-mae style. For example, he plans to offer Osaka-style sushi pressed in a wooden box as well as old-school fermented fish sushi that takes two months to prepare.
A prix-fixe option with soup, sashimi, premium nigiri, maki, and ice cream goes for $100. But Ota also plans to offer a true omakase for $180 that is customized to each guest’s tastes rather than a set menu. There will also be a seasonal tasting of fugu, or blowfish. Ota is one of the few local chefs who has a license in Japan to prepare the poisonous fish—although fugu is butchered and the toxins are  removed before it arrives in the US. Plus, a lot of fugu is now farmed. and non-poisonous.
Ota also has experience as a sake sommelier, and he wants to also familiarize diners with aged sake and warm sakes. “Only my favorite sakes I pick up,” he says.
The restaurant itself, formerly home to Donahue, is hidden away down a staircase behind a wooden black door off Wisconsin Avenue. But once you’re inside, you’ll find a skylight-lit 50-seat dining room and 10-seat sushi counter, a private event room, and a secret patio out back.
Jessica Sidman covers the people and trends behind D.C.’s food and drink scene. Before joining Washingtonian in July 2016, she was Food Editor and Young & Hungry columnist at Washington City Paper. She is a Colorado native and University of Pennsylvania grad.
