Is this the best restaurant in Canada? – Sushi Masaki Saito

Sushi Masaki Saito is a two Micheline star restaurant located in Toronto. It is the only restaurant in Canada which has been awarded 2 Michelin Stars (there are no 3 star restaurants in Canada). So, if you believe the Michelin Guide, then this would be the best restaurant in Canada. Lets find out.

The restaurant is hard to book with 2 seatings daily. One at 6pm which is limited to 5 seats, and the second at 8 (or 8:30PM), which seats up to 12 I believe. My assistant was only able to get us the earlier seating. The reason the capacity differs, according to the restaurant, is because ONLY the head chef can serve sushi. Therefore, the earlier seating needs to be limited so that they can finish before the second seating.

Walking into a high end omakase restaurant should feel reverent, like you are walking into a temple; this certainly had that feeling.

The meal started with a bunch of appetizers which is always disappointing to me. When I dine at an sushi omakase restaurant, I ONLY WANT SUSHI! To me, everything else is just taking up space, no matter how good it is. Here was the menu that evening:

Although the appetizers were good, nothing really blew me away. The flavors were delicate and obviously, of very high quality. The chef proudly proclaimed that “everything, comes from Japan” (though later I would discover one thing that didn’t so 99%).

Prior to the next dish coming out, the sea eel, the chef brought out the huge chunk of Japanese coal (binchotan) and gave a brief explanation of its benefits.

Next, we were introduced to the sushi rice being used, which was proclaimed to be the best rice in Japan. We were also given a demo of the rice and sushi prep.

Then it was time for the sushi! Each piece is delivered into your hand, and they serve you ginger sliced from whole.

Note that I dont have all the nigiri pictured because I got to talking with the couple beside us and didnt take picks during that time.

The meal ended with Miso soup and mango from Japan.

Here are my thoughts:

Service – beyond outstanding. It got to the point where it was “too much service” actually. They would change your green tea cup constantly to make sure you always had a hot cup! Once the ginger on your plate ran out, a chef would be there to give you more. Basically, they anticipated your every need. You never had to ask for more water. Things were cleared from the table almost right away. Once you unwrapped your chopsticks and the paper touched the table, someone was there to clear it.

Food – The sushi was next level. I could detect a slight elevation in quality compared to every other sushi I had had up to this point in life due to the rice, and seasoning. I wished they gave the option to order more after the omakse was done. As for the appetizers, they were good, but not mind blowing. I would of liked to see them skip or reduce the plates in this part of the meal, and increase the nigiri. I thought the miso broth was outstanding and the fruit at the end was nice, but I would also like to see some sort of pastry creation.

As regular readers know, I rarely comment on the price, but I feel like this restaurant needs to have some commentary because it is so expensive. At over $600 pp, this has to be one of the most expensive meals in Canada. Was it worth it? I am going to say as an experience, to try once, yes. Its definitely the best sushi in Canada. However, I don’t feel the increase in quality is enough to increase the pleasure vs the second best sushi in Canada, in order to justify the price. If they focused more on nigiri only, maybe, but in this configuration, I don’t think its worth the price.