Umami Mart
Yoko Kumano opens six or seven sake bottles a week for the bar behind the shop, and the house umeshu has been soaking for two years before it reaches your glass.
Why go
Kayoko Akabori and Yoko Kumano moved the shop from downtown Oakland to Broadway in order to build the tasting room they wanted, and opened the bar in 2019.1 It sits behind the shelves of sake and imported soy sauce, and Elena Kadvany's verdict is unambiguous: It's quietly become one of the best places in the Bay Area to drink sake and other Japanese spirits.
1 Kumano is a certified sake specialist and picks six or seven bottles to open every week, some unpasteurized, some meant for warming.1 The cocktails run on hojicha-infused gin and shio koji, and the Umehattan uses umeshu the owners make themselves by soaking unripened plums in sake and spirits for two years.1
Order this / avoid
- Order: a flight, or work through the by-the-glass list. Kadvany calls those
the best ways to explore Umami Mart's extensive sake library.
1 - Order: the Umehattan, for the two-year umeshu.1
- Avoid: planning dinner here. There is no food, so you raid the shop shelves.1
What locals & experts say
- San Francisco Chronicle, Elena Kadvany, February 2024:
It's quietly become one of the best places in the Bay Area to drink sake and other Japanese spirits.
1 - Kadvany on the room:
The tiny, ink-black bar, designed by Oakland's Manual Labor, is meant to evoke the intimate back-alley drinking establishments of Japan.
1
Good to know
- Hours: the shop publishes Tuesday to Sunday, 11am to 7pm.2 Kadvany reported the bar closing at 6pm in February 2024, so check before a late start.1
- No sign: the bar is at the back of the shop and does not advertise itself.1
Verdict
should-visit — Elena Kadvany gave this bar a full Chronicle piece under her own name, and her verdict puts it among the best places in the Bay to drink sake. She also wrote down how Akabori and Kumano make the drinks, which is what tells you the shop does its own work. What caps the rung is scope: no kitchen, and a bar that shuts at six, so this is an hour of a night out.