The Best Sushi and Sashimi in Toronto
Toronto‘s sushi scene has grown up fast. A decade ago, a great omakase meant a long drive to the suburbs. Today the city holds Canada’s only two-Michelin-star restaurant, a handful of serious counters flying fish in from Tokyo’s Toyosu market, and a generation of younger chefs reworking what raw fish can look like here.
This list spans that whole spectrum. There are temple-quiet omakase counters where a chef sets each piece of nigiri in front of you one at a time, to be eaten the second it lands. There are takeout windows down graffiti-covered laneways, where the same calibre of dry-aged fish comes in a box you carry to a nearby bench. And there are izakayas that would never call themselves sushi restaurants, yet turn out some of the most precise sashimi in the city between rounds of sake and grilled plates.
Prices run an enormous range. You can spend close to seven hundred dollars on a once-in-a-lifetime evening, or under a hundred for a student of that same chef serving an excellent fourteen-course set. Some of these places have spent twenty-five years perfecting one thing. Others opened in the last couple of seasons and are already booked weeks out. A few are downtown showpieces; others sit in strip malls and back laneways you would walk past without a second look.
What they share is respect for the fish: where it comes from, how it’s aged, the temperature of the rice, the restraint to add nothing it doesn’t need. We’ve included pure sushi specialists alongside a few spots where the sashimi is the reason to go, because limiting this to rolls and nigiri would mean skipping some of the best raw fish in Toronto. Here’s where we send people, whether you’re booking a celebration or grabbing a box to go.
Sushi Masaki Saito
This is the big one: chef Masaki Saito’s Yorkville counter is the only two-Michelin-star restaurant in Canada, and at roughly $680 a seat, the priciest meal in the city. Six guests at a time watch him work an Edomae omakase of fish flown in from Tokyo, finished with his famous monkfish liver. If that’s out of reach, his more accessible concept, MSSM, serves a fourteen-course set in the low hundreds, staffed by his student chefs, and it’s excellent in its own right.
Toronto
Oroshi Fish Co.
Find the blue door down a graffiti-lined laneway off College and you’re at Oroshi, a fish commissary that quietly became one of the best sushi takeouts in the city. The team dry-ages much of its fish, steelhead and sea bass especially, for a firmer texture and deeper flavour. The move is the omakase box: around a dozen pieces of nigiri plus a hand roll, chosen and cut that day. There’s no seating beyond a bench outside, so order ahead and find a sunny spot to eat it.
Toronto
Kingyo Fisherman's Market
The Cabbagetown izakaya that became a Japanese seafood market, Kingyo now does double duty: a dine-in counter and a small grocery stocked with sake, frozen ramen and fish you can have sliced to order. The sashimi platters are the thing to get, arranged with the same care as the pressed battera sushi and the makunouchi bento. It leans izakaya, so build a table around grilled fish, stone-bowl rice and a few cold plates, and let the sake list do the rest.
Toronto
Imanishi Japanese Kitchen
Another izakaya where sushi isn’t the focus, but the sashimi is worth the trip. Open in Little Portugal since 2015, Imanishi cooks Tokyo home-style food to a soundtrack of nineties Japanese vinyl: corn kakiage, katsu curry, and a Tokyo toast with taro ice cream for the table. Ask what seasonal sashimi platters are on, and add the tai carpaccio, thin slices of red snapper brightened with yuzu and tomato. Everything is sized to share and built to go with sake. Book ahead; the place is small.
Toronto
Sushi Yugen
Step through an office-tower lobby in the Financial District, past a small Zen garden, and you reach one of the city’s most serene omakase counters. Chef Kyohei Igarashi trained in Tokyo and ran a Michelin-starred counter abroad before opening Sushi Yugen in late 2023. Choose the twelve-seat counter for a focused Edomae nigiri progression, or the eight-seat chef’s counter for a longer kaiseki-and-sushi journey of sixteen-plus courses. Fish is flown in from Japan, the oak-lined space is hushed, and the sake list runs deep. Either way, book well ahead.
Toronto
Sushi Kaji Restaurant
Before Saito, Kaji was the answer to where to find Toronto’s best sushi, and for many it still is. Chef Mitsuhiro Kaji has run his omakase-only counter from an unassuming Etobicoke strip mall since 2000, slicing fish flown in from Japan that morning, seasoning his rice with a vinegar he switches by season and a soy sauce he makes himself. Sets start around $120, with wagyu and sashimi add-ons at the top tiers. There are two seatings a night, so sit at the counter if you can, and let him lead.
Toronto
Yasu Toronto
The one that started it all. When Yasuhisa Ouchi opened Yasu on Harbord in 2014, it was Canada’s first sushi-only omakase counter, and it remains a benchmark. The Osaka-born chef builds a set of roughly twenty courses, mostly Edomae nigiri, around fish flown in from Japan, Mexico and Nova Scotia, each piece laid on warm, loose rice and brushed with nikiri. It runs around $195 at the counter, with sake poured into wooden masu boxes, and there’s a takeout box for nights you can’t get a seat.
Toronto
shunoko
A quieter, more affordable way into omakase. Chef Jun Kim, who grew up around his family’s sushi restaurants in Korea, runs this small counter on north Yonge, where a set of a dozen nigiri plus a few tastings and dessert lands around $100. The sushi is classic at its base but personal in the details, with touches of truffle, olive oil and citrus that nod to Korea and the Iberian coast. Skip the usual sake and try the natural-wine pairing, a Shunoko signature. Sit at the bar if you can.
Toronto
SAKE SUSHI TORONTO
The neighbourhood takeout option. Sake Sushi is a counter on Roncesvalles with no real seating, built for picking up and carrying home. The fish is fresh and the prices are gentle, the salmon in particular gets a lot of love, and the kitchen runs late: every night until 2 a.m., which makes it one of the better answers to a midnight sushi craving in the west end. Order ahead, since pieces are cut when you call, and spend over $35 for a free appetizer.
Toronto
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