Otaru was a herring-boom port when this house opened in 1938, and it has outlasted the boom by nearly a century. Masazushi is the founding shop of the lane the town now calls Sushi Street, the block where Otaru's whole reputation for sushi began. The family reopened on the present site in 1948, after the war, and the house has grown into a large one since: a counter of around thirty seats, tatami rooms, private rooms for parties that run past thirty. What has not changed is the subject. The fish is Ezomae — the local catch of Hokkaido's own coast — the northern answer to Tokyo's Edomae.
What you eat
Nigiri built from the cold seas around Hokkaido, the island's own fish handled in the Ezomae manner that is the point of coming here rather than to a Tokyo counter. Come at the counter and watch it made; come with a group and take a private room. It is the kind of house that can seat two or thirty and give both the same fish.
The street it started
Sushi Street is a short lane of counters, and this is the one the others grew up around: the founding address, working since 1938. Otaru itself is a canal town of stone warehouses, an easy day from Sapporo, and the sushi is the reason many people make the trip. To eat here is to eat at the source of the whole street's name.
Who makes the trip
Travelers who want Hokkaido's own fish where the local sushi tradition started, and who like a house roomy enough for a couple at the counter or a family in a private room.