Bouhadana's first eponymous place, Sushi by Bou, opened a year ago in a Midtown Manhattan hotel. It was quickly lauded for its precision nigiri as well as its clever location and amenities: a converted hotel suite with a sake-dispensing machine.
Though the Miami location is just about to open to the public, its hour-long, $125 omakase experience is already booked well through the coming weeks. New Times was invited for a preview and found the speakeasy-style spot, perched atop the mansion in the 500-square-foot space called Gianni's Suite, offering precision sushi that fills the hole left when
To begin, a hostess leads you past the mansion's tall black gates into its courtyard, then upstairs to a pair of heavy wooden doors. Behind them
Past this room is the "dining room," where four seats are arranged before a lumbering leather and granite bar. It's a delightful contrast with the place's
On preview night it was 18 courses, served as individual pieces. A business card-sized menu available at the front of the lounge showed 17 courses and some slight variations. The highlights included a velvety slip of striped jack that tasted like a hybrid of meaty, fatty hamachi and butter sweet Hokkaido scallop that came later in the progression. Soy sauce-marinated
The two shortfalls in the menu included a piece of lean bluefin tuna called
Other standouts included a piece of skipjack tuna crowned with shredded ginger and chive, a generous heap of Santa Barbara sea urchin, chu-toro, medium fatty tuna with pickled fresh wasabi, and a slab of the fatty tuna called o-toro culled from the beast's collar that gave the bite a deep, almost raw meat flavor uncommon in this traditional fat bomb. Finally came an o-toro and pickled daikon hand roll and a vaunted piece of the egg sushi called tamagoyaki that was akin to a creamy custard somehow set in solid form.
Sushi by Bou joins a mix of chef-driven nigiri progressions that have long been led by the obsessive, taciturn, and always precise Kevin Cory at Naoe on Brickell Key. In recent years Makoto in Bal Harbour has joined the fray, while Tadashi Shiraishi's Hiden in Wynwood, also tucked away in a speakeasy-style setting, has quickly become a celebrated favorite.
This latest spot enters the game at an approachable price for this kind of dining experience, with safer bites. There is no mackerel or any of the other more intensely flavored, silver-skinned fish integral to many omakase experiences. That said, it's an ideal way to get a friend or loved one to trust the chef without worrying about a massive bill or a mound of sea cucumber ovaries appearing before you. The latter did once show up some years ago at Naoe and were delicious.
Sushi by Bou, 1116 Ocean Dr., Miami Beach; 305-922-9195; sushibybou.com; Open daily 5 to 11 p.m.