Eats

The Japanese takeaway with a Michelin-trained chef serving a secret omakase menu out back

No word of a lie, we may have just found the best sushi for your money in the whole of the city

Georgina Pellant - 29th September 2023

Good sushi is a hard thing to find in Manchester nowadays. To be honest, ever since the demise of Umezushi, it has felt out of reach.

Average sushi, however, is suddenly available in abundance thanks to an explosive proliferation of trendy, if soulless, Pan Asian restaurants.

You know the sort. The spots with the claggy, dried-out rice on ostentatious platters, whose chefs stuff cream cheese into the middle of their maki, or disguise its lack of freshness with cascading waterfalls of dry ice.

These spots, with their fake flower walls and neon signs that scream “Pick me!” seem, depressingly, to be taking over. So it’s with relish I can reassure you at least one place in Manchester city centre is doing its bit to remind us what real sushi should actually taste like.

Even better, it’s entirely missing the gaudy flamboyance of Manchester’s glitzy Pan Asian sushi scene – so if, like me, you’re not into superficial sushi, you should feel right at home here.

I’m talking about One Sushi, formerly known as Ikkan – a tiny Japanese takeaway shop on Oxford Road filled with little more than a few wooden counters and a cash desk topped with metallic maneki-neko, or beckoning cat.

Opened last year by the team behind China Buffet, a popular Chinese restaurant in the heart of Chinatown, its takeaway cabinets are stuffed with California and red dragon rolls, deep-fried ebi, and various tempting combo platters.

These lovingly packaged takeaway morsels are already considered by sushi fiends in the know to be amongst best in the city, but – whilst they are really good – they are nothing compared to what is coming off the kitchen’s near-invisible pass.

Hidden at the back by a blue flag featuring the One Sushi logo and rolling waves that resemble Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hokusai’s famous Great Wave off Kanagawa print, it’s here that you will reconsider whether you’ve ever really had a good piece of sushi before in your life.

Prepare to be blown away.

The no-frills setup for the omakase, which literally translates as ‘I leave it up to you’. / Image: The Manc Eats

A piece of Otoro tuna nigiri. / Image: The Manc Eats

We’re talking otoro belly tuna, A5 seared wagyu steak (that’s the highest grade you can get), sweet Japanese scallops and prawns, all prepared right in front of you by master sushi chef Eddie who trained at two Michelin star Hong Kong restaurant Zuicho.

All the fish here is super fresh, and the entire style of the menu is down to chef Eddie – meaning he chooses for you, preparing the best of the best from that day.

Priced at £58 per person, Eddie can accommodate up to four people at once for this incredible omakase sushi experience. There’s really nowhere like it in Manchester for this price, in fact the only other place where you can go to experience something like this will set you back at least £200.

For sushi lovers, this is a dream come true.

Featured image – The Manc Group