Takuzushi

The Sixth Floor and What It Signals

Sapporo's premium sushi tier has quietly expanded over the past decade, driven partly by the city's proximity to some of Japan's most sought-after cold-water seafood, sea urchin from Rishiri and Rebun, snow crab from the Sea of Okhotsk, salmon and scallops from coastal Hokkaido fisheries that supply counters as far away as Tokyo. In that context, a well-credentialed omakase counter in Chuo Ward is less surprising than it might seem to visitors who think of Sapporo primarily through its ramen or beer.

The building format, a multi-tenant dining complex, is a familiar format in Japanese cities, where serious restaurants often occupy upper floors precisely to separate the experience from street-level foot traffic. Arriving by elevator rather than a street entrance is not incidental; it marks a transition in register that the leading counters use deliberately. At Takuzushi, the sixth floor location frames the meal as something set apart from the city below, which matters when the occasion itself is the point.

Occasion Dining in a City Built for It

For milestone meals, anniversaries, milestone birthdays, business dinners that need to communicate genuine effort, Sapporo's sushi tier occupies an interesting position relative to other Japanese cities. Compared to the density and price compression of Tokyo's Ginza omakase circuit, or the heritage weight of Kyoto's kaiseki tradition (explored at addresses like Gion Sasaki in Kyoto), Sapporo's leading counters tend to offer serious technical work at price points that still feel proportionate to the setting. That makes them particularly well-suited to occasions where the meal needs to feel significant without the performative excess that can accompany Tokyo's most expensive counters.

Takuzushi operates exclusively in the evening, with a consistent 5:30 pm opening across all seven days. That daily availability is worth noting: many of Sapporo's most recognised sushi counters observe weekly closures, so the option to book on a Saturday or Sunday without adjusting travel plans around a closed day is a practical advantage for visitors structuring a trip around a single important meal. For local diners marking a specific date, the lack of a closure day also means the counter doesn't force occasion dinners into inconvenient midweek slots.

The Opinionated About Dining trajectory, Highly Recommended in 2023, ranked 350th in Japan in 2024, 386th in 2025, reflects the kind of sustained critical attention that distinguishes a counter operating at consistent level from one that earns a single mention and fades. The slight ranking shift between 2024 and 2025 is less significant than the fact of three consecutive years of recognition from a source that evaluates Japanese restaurants with unusual rigour and covers hundreds of counters annually. For context, placement in the top 400 Japanese sushi restaurants by OAD represents a meaningful credential in a country where the total number of sushi restaurants runs into the tens of thousands.

Sapporo's serious omakase tier is smaller than its reputation for seafood might suggest. Among the addresses that OAD and comparable sources track, the city has a handful of counters operating at the level where occasion diners would book months in advance and treat the reservation itself as part of the gift. Takuzushi with chef Masaya Miyashita sits within that group rather than above or below it in any obvious way, which means the decision between counters often comes down to availability, format preference, and the specific kind of occasion being marked.

For diners who have experienced Tokyo's top-tier omakase circuit, counters like Harutaka in Tokyo, or who have sat at internationally recognised Japanese counters in cities like Hong Kong (Sushi Shikon) or Singapore (Shoukouwa), Takuzushi represents Sapporo's contribution to that same format tradition: structured, chef-led, built around the logic of seasonal Hokkaido produce. The difference is geographic access to ingredients. Few cities in Japan can match Hokkaido's cold-water seafood supply chain, and a counter embedded in that supply chain operates with a seasonal ingredient roster that counters elsewhere actively try to source at significant cost and effort.

The broader Sapporo dining scene extends well beyond sushi. Arima represents the city's serious Japanese dining at a different register. For a full picture of what the city offers across restaurants, hotels, bars, and experiences, see our full Sapporo restaurants guide, our full Sapporo hotels guide, our full Sapporo bars guide, our full Sapporo wineries guide, and our full Sapporo experiences guide. Elsewhere in Japan, addresses like HAJIME in Osaka, akordu in Nara, Goh in Fukuoka, and 1000 in Yokohama illustrate the range of what Japan's regional dining cities produce outside the Tokyo-Kyoto axis.

Planning the Visit

Takuzushi operates seven days a week with a single evening service starting at 5:30 pm and closing at 10 pm, giving a service window that accommodates both early sittings and those who prefer to arrive after 7 pm. The address, 2GDINING Sapporo, 6F, Minami 3 Jonishi, 3 Chome, Chuo Ward, places it in central Sapporo, accessible from Susukino station and the main Odori area.

What to Order at Takuzushi

Omakase counters by definition remove the ordering decision from the guest: the sequence, pacing, and selection rest entirely with chef Masaya Miyashita on any given evening. What changes is the seasonal composition, which at a Hokkaido counter shifts meaningfully across the year. Winter brings peak snow crab and some of the year's most prized bafun uni from northern Hokkaido fisheries; summer shifts toward lighter preparations and a different range of white fish. For occasion diners, the absence of a menu to navigate is often the point: the meal arrives as a considered sequence, and the chef's decisions carry the weight of the occasion rather than the guest's selections. Beyond that, communicating the nature of the occasion at the time of booking, if the counter's reservation process allows for it, is standard practice at serious Japanese counters and often influences pacing and small gestures that mark the meal as distinct from a regular evening visit.