Ibushi
Japanese$$
Smoky mood-lit Tokyo grillhouse.
Prefecture 48 is heritage-listed warehouse site with four highly designed restaurants, a whisky bar and patisserie. Ibushi on the street-level is the most accessible dining room (both literally and in terms of price) and pitches itself as a modern robatayaki where you can sit at a dark timber bar and watch chefs grill meat and seafood over charcoal.
Tare sauce-enhanced lamb is cherry blossom-pink with sweet, juicy marbling under a canopy of sauteed, seaweed-green kale; wagyu chuck tail is a balanced wallop of mushroom sauce, kombu dashi and charred steak crust; duck breast sports a soy-plum glaze and some of crispest skin in town. Chef Chris Kim can grill.
You’ll probably want something lighter to kick off, though, so start with the house martini (gin, aged sake, shiitake-infused vermouth) and eight super fresh slivers of snapper, four served raw, and rest deftly licked with a blowtorch. Burnt citrus salt and bergamot oil are worthy companions to the fish, and Ibushi is a welcome addition to Sussex Street.
Good to know: The twisting gold-wire ceiling sculpture by Filipino-Belgian artist Racso Jugarap.
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