When Roppongi Hills opened over a year ago, planners invited the world’s most distinguished names in haute cuisine to set up shop in its prized passages. One of those names was Sukiyabashi Jiro. Headquartered in Ginza under the tutelage of 78-year-old master chef Jiro Ono, the sushi restaurant has over the years implemented a new serving style similar to the world-renowned courses of one of its most faithful clients—JoÎl Robuchon. When it came time to open at Roppongi Hills, Takashi Ono, son of the chef de cuisine, was on hand to carry on the sushi course concept.

Our chance to sample this new dining experience (¥20,000 per person) arrived on a recent weeknight, when, as usual, the stylish restaurant made up of a bleached, hardwood bar and a few tables was packed with suited high-rollers entertaining guests and several foreigners exhibiting a great interest in the art of sushi-making. As Ono instructed us not to apply additional soy sauce to our morsels, the first piece, flounder (karei), arrived, followed by oval squid (sumi-ika) and then greater amberjack (kanpachi), constituting the “appetizer” portion of the course. Each piece arrived individually, a system Ono explained as allowing guests to sample a wide range of seafood without straining their stomachs. 

The “main” portion of the course began with tuna (maguro no akami), fatty tuna (chu-toro) and extra fatty tuna (o-toro), followed by spotted sardine (kohada), and steamed abalone (mushi-awabi), a masterful combination of prime, “red-fleshed” fish followed by the “blue-backed” variety and finally, shellfish. Next came Japanese horse mackerel (aji) and shrimp (ebi), the serving of which had been timed to precision—boiled only minutes before appearing on our dainty, green porcelain plates—allowing the full flavor of the savory crustacean to dissolve in our mouths, and then chub mackerel marinated in vinegar (shimesaba), proving delectably chewy and not overly sour. 

The latter portion of the main course followed, in the order of Hokkaido white sea urchin (uni) wrapped in dried seaweed, mantis shrimp (shako), straw-smoked skipjack tuna (katsuo) served with scallions, Japanese cockle (torigai), and then salmon roe, which as Ono promised, bore no traces of saltiness and diffused an egg yolk-like flavor throughout our mouths the more we chewed—a sign of the genuine quality of its preparation. The last piece of the main fare was surf clam ligament (kobashira), and for dessert, we were served conger eel (anago) and egg (tamago).