In shortAmakusa-caught sushi, fresh and aged, at a five-seat island counter. Reservations run in Japanese and are hard to place from abroad, so our Tokyo desk requests the table for you, by phone and in Japanese.
Price
Lunch omakase from ¥9,000 and dinner omakase from ¥20,000 on the house menu, tax extra; recent guests quote lunch at ¥11,000
Hours
12:30–20:30; lunch starts together at 12:30, with a second seating
Closed
Mondays per Tabelog; the house says closures are irregular
Seats
A five-seat counter plus a tatami room for up to 16
Payment
Cash only
Getting there
Three minutes on foot from Hondo bus centre; 1.5–2 hours by car from Kumamoto city. Next to Tokoji temple, with no large sign; two parking spaces
Amakusa is a chain of islands off Kumamoto’s west coast where three
seas meet — the Ariake, the Shiranui and the East China Sea — and the
fish that come out of them supply many of Kyushu’s good sushi
counters. Taito is the counter that stayed on the islands. Nagano‑san
trained for twelve years at a local house, Katsura Sushi, and opened
his own in Hondo in 2007; in the Michelin Guide Kumamoto‑Oita 2018
special edition it took one star, and Tabelog’s Sushi WEST 100 listed
it in 2022 and 2025. The room is five counter seats and a tatami room
behind, and the whole operation has the plain, unhurried manner of a
port town.
What you eat
Omakase only at the counter — the house says so on its own menu. At
lunch that is ten pieces of nigiri, listed from ¥9,000 plus tax after
a December 2024 revision; a guest in January 2026 was told lunch was
¥11,000 flat. Dinner runs tsumami into nigiri from ¥20,000 plus tax.
What sets the counter apart is how the island catch is handled: some
fish served the day it lands, some aged — visitors describe a
five‑day‑aged meichi‑dai — alongside the Amakusa red uni of summer,
anago, and kue in the cold months. Beer, sake and shochu are priced
from about ¥1,000. The tatami room takes celebrations and groups up
to sixteen, priced to the occasion.
The booking reality
There is no release calendar here and no online door: you
telephone, 0969‑22‑2505, in Japanese, and the earlier the better,
because the counter is five seats; guests in 2026 advise booking
early for exactly that reason. There is no release‑day scramble — the
hard part is the geography, not the phone. Two things to fix when you call:
lunch begins for everyone at 12:30, and the house asks you not to
be late; if the first seating does not suit, ask for the second. Bring
cash — the house takes no cards, and there is no service charge
listed. Tabelog gives Monday as the closing day while the house
itself says closures are irregular, so we confirm the day’s opening
when our desk calls in Japanese. The listings on Hot Pepper and
Gnavi carry no reservation link, and the house keeps no social
account of its own — the telephone is the whole of it.
One practical note for the arrival: the house stands next to Tokoji
temple and, in its own words, has no large sign. There are two
parking spaces. In 2026 it took The Tabelog Award Bronze on top of
its two Sushi WEST 100 selections.
Travelers taking the long road — or the ferry from Shimabara — into
Amakusa for the churches, the dolphins and the coast, who want the
islands’ fish eaten where it was landed, by a local hand, without a
release‑day fight. Pair it with a night on the islands rather than a
day‑trip from the city; the drive back after dinner is two hours.
Free release-date alerts: the day before, on the morning of release day (08:00 JST) and about 30 minutes before when the time is known — or a weekly summary if the house opens a little every day.
Sushi Taito: common questions
Can you book Sushi Taito from abroad?
Yes, through our Tokyo desk. Phone in Japanese, no fixed release — but five counter seats, so call as soon as your dates are set. We call the restaurant for you, in Japanese, and the ¥6,000-per-seat fee is charged only if we confirm your table — no seat, no fee.
Some of these links are referral links: if you book through them we may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. Restaurants never pay us to be listed or ranked. Editorial policy
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