Kikuzushi opened in 1988 as a neighborhood sushi shop in Kasuga, a quiet suburb south of Fukuoka city. The founder's son, Yusuke Seguchi, spent some ten years training at Takatama, Hakata's famed counter, and was then invited to the Hotel Metropole Monte-Carlo as sushi chef and instructor — serving sushi at Prince Albert II's royal wedding alongside Joël Robuchon and Alain Ducasse. In 2012 he came home to take over his father's shop. Michelin's one-off Fukuoka-Saga-Nagasaki guide of 2019 gave it one star; with no edition since, the star stands frozen in time. Tabelog holds it at 4.39, with The Tabelog Award Silver in 2025 and 2026.
The rice
Each of the three seatings opens with the shari-kiri — the cutting of the rice — performed in front of the ten guests, which tells you where the house puts its weight. The rice is contract-farmed in Saga and sun-dried, seasoned with red vinegar, its low-stickiness grains loosening at the bite. Over it pass some twenty toppings drawn largely from Kyushu waters — kue from the Gotō islands aged ten days, kohada from Amakusa — with room for the country's best elsewhere, like chūtoro from Hachinohe.
The phone race
Reservations are by telephone only, in Japanese. The book for the following month opens on the 1st, and the line is a lottery: six-month waits are called normal, a year is not rare, and demand now comes from overseas as much as from across Japan. The 14:00 seating is reportedly the easiest to land. This is not an introduction-only house — anyone who wins the call can sit — but cancellation fees are strict: 50% from seven days out, 100% from four. One sanctioned shortcut exists: Kasuga City's hometown-tax program guarantees one pair per month at the 18:00 seating for a ¥184,000 donation.
Worth knowing
His longtime second-in-command left in 2024 to open Funakoshi in Fukuoka city — also in our collection, and a gentler door into the same school of rice.
