Michie Sushi

In their book The Essence of Japanese Cuisine Michael Ashkenazi and Jeanne Jacob write that ‘Sushi exemplifies, perhaps more than any other Japanese dish, the cultural ability to find the essence of an activity, or object, and to employ only slight handling to produce an effect.’ That is exactly what Michel and Anna have been offering to their customers in Michie Sushi for more than a decade, and eating here gives the customer the chance to see, and to understand, the essence of the world of sushi. The minimalism of the practice of sushi making, the restricted number of ingredients which the chef uses, heightens this search for the essence of the activity, and Michel and Anna understand this minimalism implicitly, and they always work with confident understatement. You get wonderful sushi at Michie Sushi, but you also get so much more than just great sushi: you get an entry into a culture, an aesthetic, an animism which reveals the soul of the rice, the fish, the wasabi, the pickled ginger, the vinegar, the nori. The effect is quietly stunning.