The other day I was sitting at a table in a Times Square sushi emporium where both the noise level and the service were what you might expect from a paintball party thrown by a pack of yowling 9-year-olds. “This is the other side of the spectrum,” David Gelb told me. Mr. Gelb, a 28-year-old film director who had joined me for lunch, meant that this clamorous palace of tossed-together titanic dynamite rainbow rolls wasn’t quite as transporting as what you might experience at, say, Sukiyabashi Jiro. Sukiyabashi Jiro is a 10-seat wisp of a restaurant in the basement of an office building in Tokyo, and its chef, Jiro Ono, is revered as one of the world’s virtuosos of sushi. Mr. Gelb has made a documentary about Mr. Ono, “Jiro Dreams of Sushi,” which opens in New York on March 9th. As I wrote this week, Mr. Ono is so fastidious about his work that Mr. Gelb had only a few seconds to capture each piece of nigiri on camera before the master felt it had lost the radiance of perfection.

“He made it, we shot it,” Mr. Gelb told me. After one close-up, Mr. Gelb felt as though the camera’s focus had been too soft on a piece of tuna sushi. “So I asked Jiro, ‘Can you put that piece of sushi down again?’ He said, ‘No, that’s not the same piece of sushi. The sushi has passed its prime. The color and texture of it have now changed because it has already been served.’ He really believes that timing is everything.” The average neighborhood eel-avocado purveyor doesn’t have standards that come anywhere close to that, of course. Which means that after spending so much time in Mr. Ono’s orbit, Mr. Gelb, who lives in Los Angeles, has gotten a tad spoiled. “I’ve become a lot more discriminating,” he said. “I don’t like cheap sushi. I only like going to really good sushi restaurants now. But I go a lot less often.” Two of his favorites in New York are Sushi Yasuda and 15 East. They’re not cheap, but Mr. Gelb has some advice for those of us who can’t afford to achieve sushi satori on a weekly basis.

“Instead of eating sushi ten times a month, eat it one time a month, but pay ten times as much,” he told me. food delivery menu manila“That’s how you can really experience what sushi is about.”how to make vegetarian sushi rolls at home Is Mr. Gelb right? food delivery london kensingtonHow do readers feel? buy japanese soda bulkIs it high time for all of us to cut back on the spicy teriyaki monster crunch rolls? sushi for delivery north hollywood

Has the abundance of accessible sushi jumped the shark?best sushi delivery london Let us know what you think.sushi in toronto beaches rn—– Select a Restaurant —–rnLAS VEGASrnLONDONrnMIAMI BEACHrnNYC WEST VILLAGErn 87 Seventh Avenue South | New York, NY 10014 | 600 Lincoln Road | Miami, FL 33134 | 3327 Las Vegas Blvd | Las Vegas, NV 89109 | London, EC2N 4AY | +44 (0) 203 640 7330 Casual Elegance – We welcome and encourage style, however, we kindly ask that guests refrain from wearing shorts, beachwear, flip flops and sportswear, including athletic trainers. Smart jeans are permitted. Our team will use the utmost discretion when permitting entry into the restaurant. Should a guest’s attire and overall presentation not adhere to our dress code, our team reserves the right to deny access to the restaurant.

Guests under 18 (under 21 in the US) are not permitted in our bars and lounges. We would love to hear about your experience at SUSHISAMBA! You’re missing outThe Zagat app helps you find the best places, faster.To the joy of New York’s omakase diners, an 11-year mentee of Tokyo’s Jiro Ono—yes, the Jiro of the beautifully shot documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi—is the chef behind the bar at Sushi Nakazawa, opening August 19th. Daisuke Nakazawa was senior apprentice to the 85-year-old sushi master, who owns the 10-seat, three-Michelin-starred omakase restaurant in the film. The bar at Sushi Nakazawa, owned by Maurizio de Rosa and Alessandro Borgognone, will also seat a lucky 10 until September, when the restaurant’s full dining room opens. Below, we round up a few more sushi restaurants with very limited capacities. The restaurant: Sushi Nakazawa, 23 Commerce Street, 212-924-2212Total seats: 10Chef at the helm: Daisuke Nakazawa of Sukiyabashi Jiro in Tokyo and Shiro’s in SeattleWhat to know: Nakazawa will serve omakase tastings paired with sake.

Reservations are for parties of two max, and a full dining room at the restaurant opens in September. The restaurant: Tanoshi, 1372 York Avenue, 646-727-9056Total seats: 10Chef at the helm: Toshio Oguma of Morimoto in New York and NapaWhat to know: The restaurant serves three rounds per day at 6 p.m., 7:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. The chef’s specialty is “loosey sushi,” intended to dissolve upon eating. (Also, eat with your fingers.) The restaurant: Ichimura at Brushstroke, 163 Duane Street, 212-791-3771Total seats: 12Chef at the helm: Eiji Ichimura of New York’s IchimuraWhat to know: David Bouley redesigned his bar at Brushstroke to showcase chef Ichimura’s expertise to glowing reviews. Omakase menus start at $160. The restaurant: Sushi Ko, 91 Clinton Street, 917-734-5857Total seats: 11Chef at the helm: John Daley of Masa and 15 EastWhat to know: The Lower East Side restaurant serves omakase offerings in three courses ($75), five courses ($125) and seven courses ($175), or full omakase ($200).

The restaurant: Nowaza Bar, 212 North Cañon DriveTotal seats: 10Chef at the helm: Osamu Fujita of Marssa Restaurant in Las Vegas (also a friend and mentee of sushi master Kazunori Nozawa)What to know: Reservation-only seatings are $150 per person Monday through Saturday at 6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. The restaurant: Urasawa, 218 N Rodeo Drive, 310-247-8939Total seats: 10Chef at the helm: Hiroyuki UrasawaWhat to know: In 2011, Urasawa was ranked the number-two most expensive restaurant in the U.S. (after Masa in New York). The average bill is said to be $1,111. The restaurant: Tekka, 537 Balboa Street, 415-221-8455Total seats: 11What to know: Unlike most of its limited-capacity counterparts, this restaurant doesn’t take reservations. Seating times are 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. The restaurant: Kinchan Sushi, 500 Ala Moana Blvd, 808-534-0088Total seats: 12What to know: A local hotspot, the Restaurant Row sushi bar offers a 10-course omakase menu. The restaurant: Sushi Tetsu, 12 Jerusalem Passage, +44 20 3217 0090Total seats: 7Chef at the helm: Toru Takahashi of NobuWhat to know: The chef’s wife Harumi runs front of house.