REVIEW | Umezushi, Mirabel Street

THERE’S a Japanese documentary called Jiro: Dreams of Sushi. It traces the career of octogenarian sushi master Jiro Ono, who has been preparing the same jewel-like dishes every day since 1947 in a ten-seater restaurant in a Tokyo subway. It’s how they do things. No one in Japan believes: “We can be Jiros just for one day”.

As I fumbled in the salmon’s skull the uprooted eyeball rolled slowly into my lap

His pursuit of perfection has earned him three Michelin stars. One son has left to create a similar enterprise while the fiftysomething elder sibling toils on as an underling, waiting to inherit from stubborn old Jiro (very like Prince Charles and the Queen, you feel). 

I’d not seen the film for a while (raw fish is a niche watch) but I caught up with it recently on a Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong, prompting me to check out again Manchester’s nearest equivalent. 

Except Umezushi has been around for less than three years and it fits twice as many covers into its railway arch near Victoria Station. Oh, and it doesn’t follow that Japanese template of preparing and serving just the one thing well. Still quite focused, though. Last year it ditched tempura in favour of Kushiyaki (grills, skewers, yakitori chicken and beyond) at evening and weekends alongside its sashimi and sushi, all governed by the day’s market haul.

Early days that haul wasn’t quite as reliable in quality as it seems now. Their website list of suppliers is surely the most comprehensive around.

And on the evidence of two recent visits the kitchen rises superlatively to the challenge under its Korean head chef – whose kimchi must be the best in town. Do order the pickle platter.

Umezushi

'The Lady Of Flowers' 

The first visit was a lunchtime, where there is an express menu and they are happy to do carry-outs, but I had eyes only for the specials board and the luminous fishiness of ‘Turbot’, ‘Cobia’, ‘O-toro’. Sashimi calling. Fish farm aficionados regard cobia (or black salmon) as the holy grail, a prolific grower that, unlike its rivals, carp and talapia, comes out of the tank as sashimi grade. 

Raw, this offered a dense white texture, less flaky than the turbot. They dovetailed aesthetically in the bowl with the gorgeously pale and marbled O-toro (bluefin tuna belly). Two sashimi pieces of each set us back respectively £5.60, £5.60 and £7.50. 

On to sushi. Immensely savoury freshwater eel (£5) was the star among the nigiris, though scallop (£5.50) and hamachi (£4.20) were faultless and a crumbly crab uramaki (£4.20) undermined my normal antipathy to the California roll per se.

Nigiri  and crab uramaki

The subsequent Kushiyaki-centric early evening trip coincided with a Japanese lady doing exquisite flower arrangements for the restaurant. Typical of the attention to detail. For starters, I couldn’t resist the Welsh Wagyu beef nigiri and the melting flesh came adorned with two pretty flowers, too, and some cauterising wasabi. This had me gulping my Coedo Tokyo craft beer, like their Koshu wines unique in Manchester. Online beer nerds had been dubious about the seven percent Coedo Beniake Imperial Sweet Potato Amber, but I rather enjoyed the bitter-toffeish ale, which uses roasted sweet potato as a secondary ingredient, so the Japanese only qualify it as a ‘malt beverage'.

It was far preferable to the £8.80 a glass Yealands  Pinot Noir Rose from visit number one. I wish I had spotted they do the excellent Ridgeview English sparkler at £6.50 a go – the restaurant, whose wine list is exceptional for an Oriental food operation, recently held a food matching dinner with the Sussex winery. Umezushi’s sake menu is also spectacular, but it would be easy to over-spend.

Welsh Wagyu beef nigiri

Coedo Beniake Imperial Sweet Potato Amber

Now came the time for a bit of adventure, which for me defines Umezushi’s significance. No, not the Lobster Nabe kicking in at a cool £110 the pot (Nabe means pot) – a whole crustacean cooked in a kimchi broth. Even our expansive coffers wouldn’t run to that.

Instead the frugality of a chicken oyster skewer (£2.50 with plain rice), a whole roasted salmon head (£7) and a roasted hamachi collar (£8).

Chicken oysters are the two oyster-shaped pieces of dark meat that lie on either side of a whole bird’s backbone. These came miso-glazed and moreish. The salmon head was a trickier proposition. First crunching the crisp skin, then delving into cavities for soft and subtle meat, finally scooping out the moist brains, but as I fumbled in the salmon’s skull the uprooted eyeball rolled slowly into my lap. Like a marble, only springy.

Chicken oysters

Whole roasted salmon head

Hamachi collar

An hamachi collar also demands a degree of delving. The same amberjack/yellowtail that gave its fillet to my sushi perhaps provided this stand-out dish across the two meals. This bony section just behind the head and gills is the fattest juiciest part of the fish, so perfect for grilling or roasting on the bone, which had happened here. I happily scraped out the smoky, swordfishlike flesh.

What’s to be frightened of? It’s a damned sight less fiddly than negotiating skate of its cartilaginous bones, for instance and it’s fun to venture beyond fish wrapped around rice

The lady of the flowers asked me “You like our food? Have you been to Japan?”

“Yes,” I replied, “to Fukuoka in poison blowfish season and the ryokan bathhouses of the Noto Peninsula” before returning to my captivating collarbone.

Umezushi, 4 Mirabel Street, Manchester, M3 1PJ, 0871 8118877. 

Rating: 17/20

Food: 9/10 (sashimi 9, sushi 9, pickle platter 9, chicken oysters 8, salmon head 8, hamachi collar 10)

Atmosphere: 4/5.

Service: 4/5.