Local yellowtail (Seriola lalandi), caught off the San Diego coast or sourced from Ensenada aquaculture, sliced thin on the diagonal and served chilled with ponzu, yuzu kosho and a sliver of jalapeno.
San Diego's Pacific yellowtail (hamachi or kingfish) runs from May through October and has been a target species since the tuna fleet's heyday in the 1920s. The sashimi-grade version reached the city's sushi rooms in the late 1990s as Hiroyuki Kawakami at Sushi Ota and Soichi Kadoya at Soichi (Adams Avenue) built their local sourcing programmes. Soichi's Michelin star (since 2022) is built around West-Coast hamachi and the Tomales Bay oyster. The yellowtail-with-jalapeno preparation arrived from Matsuhisa Nobu's Los Angeles room and travelled south.
3 editor picks for Pacific yellowtail sashimi in San Diego, ranked by editorial score. All San Diego signature dishes · Pacific yellowtail sashimi across every city.
Soichi Sushi ★ 4.8
university-heights · 2121 Adams Ave, San Diego, CA 92116
Soichi Sushi in San Diego is Soichi Kadoya's Michelin-starred (since 2022) omakase room in University Heights, an intimate counter with a six-piece omakase and a handful of a la carte plates.
Sushi Ota ★ 4.7
pacific-beach · 4529 Mission Bay Dr, San Diego, CA 92109
Sushi Ota in San Diego is Yukito Ota's Mission Bay Drive room since 1990, the strip-mall sushi counter that has trained more San Diego sushi chefs than any other kitchen in the city.
Sushi Tadokoro ★ 4.6
old-town · 2244 San Diego Ave, Ste C, San Diego, CA 92110
Sushi Tadokoro in San Diego is Mitsui Tadokoro's Old Town omakase counter, the long-running Michelin Guide-listed Japanese kitchen with traditional Tokyo-style preparation.