Two Wildly Popular Omakase Restaurants Are Debuting in Miami This Summer

Miami’s love affair with high-end omakase restaurants is showing now signs of slowing down. Two more award-winning, mega-popular omakase restaurants are headed to the Magic City this summer including the one-starred, LA-based Sushi by Scratch Restaurants and Austin favorite, Sushi | Bar.

Husband-and-wife chefs and restaurateurs Phillip Frankland Lee (a Top Chef contestant) and Margarita Kallas-Lee (an Eater Young Gun 2016 semifinalist) are bringing their Michelin-starred omakase restaurant, Sushi by Scratch Restaurants: Miami to Coconut Grove starting July 1. Housed inside the historic Stirrup House — located right behind another recently Michelin-starred restaurant, Ariete — the restaurant will transform the two-story building into a 10-seat counter-only omakase den manned by a team of three chefs and one bartender. With three seatings nightly (5 p.m., 7:15 p.m., and 9:30 p.m.), the 17-course meal consists strictly of nigiri with each item served as is — meaning no extras like soy sauce or wasabi. The menu changes regularly but certain favorites will be making its way to Miami like the hamachi painted with a sweet corn pudding and topped with bread crumbs and the 1-2 Punch offering different presentations of bone marrow over two courses.

A seat at Sushi by Scratch Restaurants: Miami is $165 per person plus tax and service. Non-alcoholic beverages are included with beer, wine, sake, and Japanese whiskeys available a la carte. There are also two beverage pairing options: $85 for three different sakes, two cocktails, and a beer, and $110 for six different pours of sake.

Over on Miami Beach, Austin’s favorite omakase pop-up turned brick-and-mortar restaurant Sushi | Bar (which was originally brought to Texas in pop-up form by Lee and Kallas-Lee, but the duo are no longer involved with the restaurant in any capacity per their reps) is debuting on the ground level of the Esme Miami Beach hotel. Debuting this September, it’ll offer three seatings nightly (5 p.m., 7:15 p.m., and 9:30 p.m.) for 12 guests offering a 17-course meal by chef Ambrely Ouimette, one of the country’s only female omakase chefs. While the menu will shift almost daily, Sushi | Bar Miami will feature plenty of the dishes that made the restaurant so popular in Austin (which boasted a 20,000 person long waiting list during its pop-up run) including the aged bluefin akami with dehydrated red miso and everything bagel spice and the hokkaido scallop with white truffle salt, shaved black truffle, and spherified truffle caviar.

The meal at Sushi | Bar Miami is $145 per person plus tax and service, with a selection of drink pairings, including sake, cocktails, wine, and beer also available a la carte.

Sushi by Scratch Restaurants is located at 3242 Charles Street in Coconut Grove and is openWednesday through Sunday for three seatings starting at 5 p.m. For more information visit here. Sushi | Bar Miami will be located at 1435 Drexel Avenue on Miami Beach and will be open Tuesday through Saturday from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. with three seatings nightly. For more information visit here.