Best Sushi Restaurants in Hong Kong 2026
By Kenji Watanabe · Published · Updated
Masahiro Yoshitake opened Sushi Shikon at the Landmark Mandarin Oriental in 2012 and earned the first three Michelin stars ever awarded to a sushi counter outside Japan two years later. Sushi Saito Tokyo opened its Hong Kong branch in 2018 and matched the three-star rating in the 2022 guide. Two three-star sushi-ya in one city is a number only Tokyo otherwise reaches. The seven counters below cover what the city can actually deliver — from those two flagships down to the smaller rooms where the fish still arrives from Toyosu twice a week.
Seven Sushi Counters Worth the Booking
Eight seats at a Hinoki counter that runs roughly five metres along the back of a windowless room on the seventh floor of the Landmark Mandarin Oriental. Yoshiharu Kakinuma leads service most nights, trained under Masahiro Yoshitake at the parent Sushi Yoshitake in Ginza. Fish lands from Toyosu Wednesday and Saturday; the menu shifts substantially between those two deliveries, which is the case for booking back-to-back nights if you can find them. The akazu shari is closer in colour and intensity to Yoshitake's Ginza counter than to anything else in Hong Kong.
The other three-star sushi-ya in Hong Kong, and the more architecturally serious of the two. Sushi Saito Hong Kong sits on the 45th floor of the Four Seasons with a sliding-screen entry that opens into a single-counter room finished in Yoshino cypress. Hideaki Maeda runs the counter; Takashi Saito visits quarterly from Tokyo to audit. The kohada course is the test dish — the gizzard shad is cured in salt and red vinegar for exactly 36 hours, a technique Saito refined over fifteen years, and the timing is the difference between the cure tasting clean and tasting harsh. Maeda has it.
The smaller, solo-chef counter for diners who want a sushi experience without the hotel infrastructure and the wine programme attached. Six seats, a single chef, and a fixed counter rhythm that is the cleanest expression of solo-chef omakase in Hong Kong. The hikari-mono flight is the booking decision — silver-skinned fish (kohada, sayori, aji) is the most demanding of the cures because the window between cured and over-cured is narrow, and Takeshi runs it consistently.
Not sushi — included for the format. Hideaki Sato runs the counter at Ta Vie in the same configuration most Hong Kong sushi diners book for: a fifteen-seat counter with the chef facing forward, course-by-course pacing, and the same level of refinement found at Shikon or Saito. The cuisine is Japanese-French (Sato trained at Tetsuya's in Sydney and at Ryugin in Tokyo); the format is the closest non-sushi-ya equivalent for a diner who has already booked the three-star sushi rooms and wants a counter alternative.
An Edomae-style counter for diners who want the aged-fish lineage — Tomoaki Mori works in the longer-aging school that hangs tuna for seven to ten days before serving, which produces a glutamate-deeper fish and a softer texture than the same-day Toyosu approach at Shikon or Saito. The shari is held in a charcoal-warmed ohitsu (a lidded cedar rice container) at the counter, which keeps the rice at the higher body-temperature register typical of the older Tokyo schools.
The modern half of the list. ZUMA is not a sushi-ya — it is a modern Japanese izakaya-style room with a sushi counter at the back. The black cod with miso and the Wagyu tataki are the dining-room signatures; the sushi bar runs à la carte at lunch and as a four-piece flight with a glass of sake at dinner. The booking case is different: this is the lively-room option for a date night that wants atmosphere and a sake list, not a quiet Edomae meditation.
The Hong Kong outpost of Tokyo's Sushi Tokami, the Marunouchi counter known for its work with aged maguro and the deep red-vinegar shari that the Tokami lineage developed. Tuna is the case — the parent restaurant sources from the same wholesaler that supplies Sushi Shin Sushi Sho and the Aoyama three-star counters. The HK branch is smaller than the Tokyo flagship, seats ten, and runs two seatings nightly.
How to Pick the Right Sushi Counter for the Evening
Sushi Shikon and Sushi Tokami run akazu (red-vinegar) shari served at body temperature. Sushi Saito Hong Kong runs cooler shari with a sharper rice-vinegar profile. The school dictates how the fish reads; pick the school first, then the counter.
Toyosu deliveries land in Hong Kong Wednesday and Saturday at the three-star counters. The menu the day after a delivery is meaningfully different from the menu two days later — book Thursday or Sunday for the freshest expression.
First seating (18:00–18:30) is the better booking at any counter that runs two services; the chef is fresher and the rice is closer to ideal temperature. Second seating (20:30–21:00) is for diners who prefer a longer-evening pace and accept slightly looser timing.
The eight-seat counters (Shikon, Saito, Takeshi) work beautifully for solo diners and reasonably for couples; conversation across the chef-counter axis is the natural mode. For groups of three or more, book ZUMA or Ta Vie's larger counter instead — sushi-ya counters do not flex for groups.