167 Sushi Bar The Case for Another Night of Sushi

Apparently, four nights of sushi in one week is not excessive. It is due diligence.

My first visit to 167 Sushi Bar came at the end of an improbable winning streak involving KYN, Sushi|Bar, and Aji. By the time Noel and I arrived to join our long lost friend, the burden was squarely on 167 to prove that I had not finally pushed this experiment one raw fish too far.

The first exhibit disposed of that concern immediately. A wild mushroom gyoza special arrived with a deeply crisp sear, pickled mushrooms, scallions, celery, and a little crunchy heat. The combination was earthy, acidic, fresh, and outrageously good. My contemporaneous legal analysis was simply, “Fucking hell.” I stand by it.

Both salads were crisp, fresh, and delicious. That sounds like faint praise only if you have forgotten how many kitchens treat salad as compulsory paperwork. Here, the local lettuce salad with yuzu, radish, and shaved sesame crouton and the marinated cucumber salad with

sesame vinaigrette and crispy shallot were treated like dishes worth ordering.

The regular dumplings were clever and flavorful, although the filling was slightly dense. Their “magic carpet” turned out to be a crisp cheese tuile that added flavor and texture without making the dish heavy or greasy. It was a smart garnish with an actual purpose, a standard that became a theme throughout the meal.

The charred octopus was properly cooked, which is no small feat. Because of my pineapple allergy, the kitchen kindly omitted the pineapple yuzu preparation. The octopus had been cooked sous vide and was exceptionally tender. We added lemon to replace some of the missing acidity, and the whole dish snapped into focus.

The sesame lamb noodles were full of cumin-rich flavor, with properly cooked noodles and well-seasoned lamb.

The tuna crispy rice also got the proportions exactly right. There was enough perfectly crisp rice to provide structure, but enough tuna to make it a tuna dish rather than an overpriced rice cake wearing a fish hat.

Then we began working through the maki list. We ordered the tuna sriracha with scallion and pickled shiitake, the salmon shiso with lemon confit and togarashi, the spicy hamachi with Fresno chile and yuzu miso, and the shrimp tempura with avocado and kizami wasabi. All four were excellent. The first three were particularly interesting, each delivering an unexpected but coherent combination of flavors. The shrimp tempura roll was well executed but more conventional than its companions.

I even liked the hamachi, a fish toward which I generally maintain a healthy skepticism. More startlingly, the salmon shiso was my favorite. After recently preparing to prosecute another chef for putting shiso pesto on kinmedai, only to discover that it worked beautifully, I must confront the accumulating evidence. Apparently, I love shiso now.

We also ordered every available nigiri except the hamachi: black sea bass, bluefin tuna, salmon, walu, toro, and sea scallop. Each piece arrived with its own thoughtful garnish. The kitchen showed creativity without burying the fish under a pile of fashionable distractions.

The akami received the simplest treatment, just olive oil and sea salt, which allowed the quality of the tuna to shine. The lightly torched otoro was rich and lovely. The walu was especially good with yuzu, whose acidity cut cleanly through the richness of the fish. But the black sea bass stole my heart. That was perhaps the best evidence of the kitchen’s judgment. When black sea bass can command attention on the same platter as otoro, the chef is doing something right.

The beverage program kept pace with the food. I am on a yuzu kick, so I obviously drank three of the spirit-free yuzu drinks. They were tart, refreshing, and excellent with the richer dishes. Noel had two Bizarro Yuzu Spritzes and a Tokyo Mule and loved both. A restaurant that gives drinkers and nondrinkers equally interesting choices deserves credit.

The practical cautions are real. Parking is tight, although we lucked into street parking. The restaurant itself is also tight, and I would not wander in expecting abundant personal space. Reserving a table made the experience considerably more comfortable.

Service was charming throughout. The staff handled my allergy thoughtfully and showed no alarm when we ordered a substantial portion of the menu. In Charleston, this should perhaps be recognized as a specialized hospitality skill. By the end of the night, the only criticism we could muster was that a couple of very good dishes were less interesting than the exceptional ones. Nothing was bad. Nothing felt careless. The kitchen consistently balanced richness with acidity, gave familiar dishes a point of view, and knew when to embellish excellent fish and when to leave it alone.

167 Sushi Bar is packed because it deserves to be. The verdict is simple: make the reservation, then order like you mean it.