The Room
The Tagawa family opened Komé on Airport Boulevard in 2011 — Take and Kayo Tagawa cooking the food of their Tokyo-area childhood at full restaurant scale, with their son Hideki running the sushi counter. The room is the longest-running serious-Japanese kitchen north of the river and one of the most-reliable mid-tier sushi rooms in Austin.
The dining room is small and intentional — a sushi counter at the front, twelve seats facing the chefs, four-tops along the eastern wall. The Texas Monthly review held Komé among the city's best sushi counters across three review cycles. The Austin Chronicle has named the room the city's best Japanese restaurant outside the Uchi-and-Tatsu-ya brackets in five different years.
The Food
The sushi counter handles a serious nigiri and sashimi programme — fish flown in three times weekly from Toyosu and Hawaii — alongside the izakaya kitchen at the back of the dining room. The chef's omakase counter at $95 per person is the order for a first visit and runs about twelve courses across an hour and a half. The izakaya menu — yakitori, the seasonal vegetable plates, the Japanese curry, the donburi rice bowls — runs as the table-service alternative.
Sake programme is one of the deepest in north Austin — the bar manager has personally sourced from small Japanese producers — and the by-the-glass programme rotates weekly. Beer is Sapporo and a small Texas-craft selection. Service is informed and warm, in the family-restaurant register the Tagawa family has run for fifteen years.
Best Occasion Fit
Solo Dining: The sushi counter at Komé is one of the most-reliable Austin solo-dining seats. The chef will run the omakase at the right pace, the sake pairing is the conversation, and the kitchen treats the diner of one with the same care a four-top receives.
First Date: The sushi counter at Komé is a quiet first-date alternative for the diner who wants the night to register as adventurous and intimate at once. The chef's narration is the conversational scaffolding the date can use; the sake pairing is the second move.
Birthday: Birthdays at Komé are warm, sushi-led, family-restaurant-style affairs the Tagawa family handles with fifteen years of practice. The corner four-top is the seat to request. The kitchen will run a set omakase for tables of four or more on a day's notice.