Sushi Edomata

Koichi Ito orders the fish by text off a direct line to Toyosu, and it mostly lands on a Sunday, which is why the counter is dark that day.1 8

Why go

Ito's uncle Sam Sugiyama opened the room this one came out of, Sushi Sam's Edomata, on E 3rd Avenue in 1988.3 Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan ate there. In 2020 they sent the restaurant $100,000, one of eight they gave to.2 The last service was 28 December 2024.4

Then the family opened this one. Ito cooks with a staff of fifteen. Sam's niece Toko Ito makes the desserts under her own label. Her husband Kelvin Ching runs the business.1

The fish still comes off a direct line to Toyosu in Tokyo, ordered by text. It mostly lands on a Sunday, which is why the room shuts that day.1 8 The counter is cut from a slab of redwood, twelve curved seats tucked under it. Ito had been picturing that room since a Manhattan sushi bar fifteen years earlier. The old place sat 60 and this one sits 35.1

I have not found a critic's verdict on this counter, so what follows is what the old room was known for and what the reporting says carried across.

Order this / avoid

Order: the seared toro nigiri. Jeremy Cheng, executive chef at Avenir Restaurant Group, picked it for the Six Fifty's chef poll: it is lightly torched to just warm the fatty tuna to a melt-in-your-mouth temperature (literally) and brushed with a special yuzu glaze and sea salt.6
Also from the old menu: hand rolls stuffed with crispy salmon skin, and a green tea tiramisu.7 The menu carried over intact.3
Ask what is new. Ito adds specials nightly and has brought in young cooks from Japan to work on them.1
At lunch: the $18 set, with a side of the day, miso soup, shrimp and vegetable tempura, rice or a California roll, and either chicken teriyaki or salmon yuanyaki.1
Avoid: driving here and expecting to park. There is no convenient lot and street parking is limited.1

What locals & experts say

Koichi Ito, on what he wants from the counter, to The Almanac: I want to grow up with the customers. I want to work as long as Sam. Sushi is my life.1
Elena Kadvany, the San Francisco Chronicle's deputy food editor, on the closure: the Bay Area lost one of its most cherished sushi restaurants.3
Yuko Amizaki, a customer since before she was married: It's upscale compared to the last location.1

Good to know

Finding it: a small wood-framed building with a black front, no sign, and a neon open light in the glass. It sits next to The Swingin' Door.1
The sign: Ching says regulars keep asking him not to put one up.1
Booking: dinner runs Tuesday to Saturday and tables are already hard to get. Lunch is Thursday to Saturday.1
The name: it comes from an earlier Edomata in Aichi prefecture, where Ito watched his uncle work as a boy.1
Sugiyama: he splits his time between Nagoya and the Bay, drops in on regulars, and carves cork miniatures now.1

Verdict

should-visit — The family that cooked the old room cooks this one, and it kept the old phone number. Book, because the room got smaller.