Rating: ★★★★☆

Address: 4/F, 6 Knutsford Terrace, Tsim Sha Tsui 尖沙咀諾士佛臺6號4樓

Telephone: 2723 2568

Privé Group, the guys behind NUR, Common Room and Bungalow, have now expanded to Kowloon side and one of their latest outlets is Hanabi, a neat, cosy 18-seater omakase bar in Knutsford Terrace.

This new eatery is headed by Japanese sushi chef Michael Chan, who previously worked at Nobu at InterContinental Hong Kong. The omakase menu is largely traditional, with certain creative, contemporary touches. There are two menus to choose from, the Tsubomi menu, priced at $800 per person, and the Mankai menu, priced at $1,200 per person, with the latter offering a more varied selection of sushi and sashimi than the former.

As Privé Group operates some of the most popular nightclubs in town, you can be rest assured that they will have an impressive sake selection. We order a Hanabi House Sake ($420/ 720 ml) to complement our meal, which has a nice sweetness and tastes fantastic.

(1) A beautifully arranged cold platter is presented before our omakase menu begins, and we particularly enjoy the silky tofu.

(2) The omakase menu starts with a Daily Special Appetiser, which is a painting-like plate of sashimi, fig and salad. The use of figs, which is rather uncommon, is applauded, as it turns out to be a surprisingly pleasant with white fish.

(3) The next dish is the restaurant’s signature dish and also our favourite, Hanabi. Named after the restaurant and meaning “fire works” in Japanese, this two-tiered gem comes with an oyster in a ponzu sauce on top, and an apple wood smoked toro at the bottom. The oyster on the top layer is exquisitely juicy and fresh. The bottom layer, which is still fuming as it is served, contains a piece of startlingly tender toro which has been lightly cooked by the apple wood fumes and benefits from a gentle sweetness from the apple sauce. This dish is extremely innovative and remkarbaly tasty, but note that it is only available on the Mankai menu.

(4) After this appetiser, the sashimi follows. As artisanal salts are very trendy at the moment, chef Michael is surely keeping up with this trend and uses three types of delicate rock salts on some of the sashimi – the purple Iranian salt, the white Mongolian salt and the pink Himalayan salt.

Thanks to the restaurant’s small size, chef Michael is able to ensure that only the best fishes are served. The sashimi may not be the most expensive types, but all of them is freshly flown in from Tokyo everyday and we find the Hokkaido scallops particularly tender and alluring.

(5) There should be around 10 pieces of sushi on the menu, but my dining companion and I are so full that we ask chef Michael to cut it down to 8 pieces. The fish is delightfully fresh and each piece is precisely and meticulously prepared. I am getting hungry again just from staring at the photos below!

(6) A small piece of grilled cod fish follows the sushi, and its texture is beautifully velvety and its taste magnificent.

(7) A bowl of miso soup helps wash down the food before we get on with the dessert.

 (8) For desserts, you can choose between a red bean ice cream and a yuzu sorbet. I prefer the latter, as it is marvellously refreshing after a big feast. I find the flavour of the red bean ice cream a tad faux and hope that the restaurant can replace it with a different supplier.

We enjoy the premium-quality sashimi and sushi, and admire the creative touches that permeate through the menu. This is surely a great restaurant for romantic dinner dates – an intimate ambience, friendly staff, lots of sake and mouthwatering sashimi will surely impress your loved one!