Just 10 months after its opening, high-end omakase restaurant Nagai Edomae Sushi suddenly shuttered in August. Now, it’s reopened under new ownership and a new chef: 29-year-old Jason Li, who sports an “expressive, bold and daring” omakase style, according to mentor Sunny Noah.
Sushi Kinsen opened Oct. 1 – a year and one day after Nagai – offering $210 multi-course meals designed and crafted by Li. While Li may be the youngest head chef between Kinsen’s sister restaurants, which include Ren Omakase in Menlo Park and Iki Omakase in Palo Alto, he offers “deeply traditional yet subtly innovative omakase,” Noah said.
If dining at Ren Omakase is like a serene coastside drive, Kinsen’s experience is more akin to a roller coaster through a mountain, Noah explained. Li’s sushi rice is much more acidic, meaning he has to adjust his marination to complement it. He also uses innovative garnish pairings that help bring out the true flavor of the fish, said Noah.
While Sushi Kinsen does not have a menu, you may find golden-eye snapper, blackthroat seaperch, pacific saury, Hokkaido Murasaki Uni and dry-aged blue-fin tuna in various courses.
The unused himuro from Nagai Edomae Sushi still sits at Sushi Kinsen, and Li hopes to eventually put it to use. A himuro is a wooden chamber where ice is placed above fish to wet-age and bring out the fish’s umami flavor.
“Wet-aging always has an advantage over dry-aging in terms of flavor profile, richness and also the depth,” Li said.
Li’s previous experience includes working under the tutelage of Chef Seto, who works at various high-end sushi restaurants in Tokyo, from 2018 to 2020, as well as with Tomonori Nagai at the former Sushi Nagai in San Francisco. His style is influenced by chefs from Michelin-starred restaurants in Japan’s Ginza area, Noah said. Li’s father is one of the owners of Sushi Kinsen.
“For the past five years, (Li) used Tancho as an experimentation playground, because Tancho is a more casual omakase, so he played with all his ideas in any way that he saw fit,” Noah said. “So that helps him to be very creative, but in a very well controlled and also technical way.”
The name Kinsen is a mixture of “Kin,” which means gold and is a good luck color, and Li’s kanji name, “Sen.” Kinsen is also the name of a famous koi fish, which is a lucky sign in Japanese and Chinese culture.
While the ambiance at Sushi Kinsen is very similar to that of Nagai Edomae Sushi, the tableware has changed, including the addition of unique glassware. For example, Sushi Kinsen has sourced a handmade sake cup and pitcher from Kobayashi Glass Crafts, which cost about $1,000 each. Noah hopes to collect more of these artistic pieces, with the goal of having a “whole collection of such masterpieces that we could use for sake pairing,” he said.
Noah, who owns Tancho, Ren Omakase and Iki Omakase and is the lead server at Sushi Kinsen, said he’s not planning on opening any more high-end omakase restaurants but is excited to see Li flourish and continue the practice of traditional edomae omakase.
Sushi Kinsen, 2074 Broadway St., Redwood City; 650-281-4528, Instagram: @sushikinsen. Open Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday to Sunday at 5:40 p.m. and 8 p.m.
Dig into food news. Follow the Peninsula Foodist on Instagram and subscribe to the newsletter to get insights on the latest openings and closings, learn what the Foodist is excited about eating, read exclusive interviews and keep up on the trends affecting local restaurants.
