:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/66862715/IMG_1035.0.jpg)
Seattle’s takeout world just got a major new addition. After shutting down temporarily in mid-March, Sushi Kashiba — the upscale Pike Place restaurant from esteemed chef Shiro Kashiba — is now offering $100 omakase dinner boxes for preorder and pickup. The boxes include a curated selection of 10 pieces of sushi, 9 pieces of sashimi, tamago, rice, and a sampling of Kashiba’s popular black cod, with the option of adding a sake or champagne pairing. There are 25 available per day, available to pickup at the restaurant on Fridays and Saturdays, with Thursday pickup times added next week.
Each box will be slightly different, depending on the quality of fish available at the time, but Kashiba’s son Ed, the restaurant’s director of operations, tells Eater Seattle that the selection will include a “greatest hits” of the restaurant’s usual omakase. On the sushi side, that includes items like salmon, mackerel, kanpachi, unagi, king crab, and geoduck; the sashimi could vary, but will likely feature cuts of toro, lean tuna, and a white fish.
Even if the seafood is similar, this is still a significant adjustment for Sushi Kashiba. The restaurant is known for its carefully orchestrated tasting menus, best enjoyed at the long counter inside a handsome, modern dining room tucked into a cozy corner of the Market. With Seattle still in phase one of Washington’s reopening plan, and dining rooms still completely closed, it’s unclear when the sushi destination will be able to offer that experience again. Chef’s counters themselves could be in peril for a long time.
But Sushi Kashiba hopes to be able to resume dine-in services eventually, even at 50 percent capacity, and the omakase boxes could provide a bridge to that effort and generate revenue, in the meantime.
“We’d like to continue this offering until dining services begin, but it really depends on when phase two will begin,” says Ed Kashiba, adding that there’s only a limited supply of the boxes, specially ordered from Japan. “We hope they last.”
