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Ozumo in Oakland

Oishii Ozumo

Japanese Esthetics Meet American Fusion in Uptown

     Midway through taking our dinner order at Ozumo one early spring evening, our server, Ken, offered some advice. “You have some fairly regular Japanese things so far,” he said, referring to the gyoza (pot stickers), kappa maki (cucumber sushi roll) and tempura yasai (assorted vegetables) we’d requested. “You might want to try a few of our original dishes.”
     A few months earlier I’d spent a week in Japan, where I didn’t see a single sushi roll and my notion of typical Japanese food had come to embrace pickled vegetables, dried fish, katsuo no tataki (lightly broiled bonito), uni (sea urchin, as much as I could get my chopsticks on), simple yakatori skewers of beef tongue and liver (enhanced by copious quantities of beer) and chankonabe, the enormous one-pot, protein-heavy stew favored by sumo wrestlers.
     But Ken’s solicitous attention was understandable. He was trying to make our meal as enjoyable as possible — in the wake of an inauspicious beginning.
    Upon our arrival, after a brief wait just inside the massive blond wooden front door, a hostess led us from the crowded and boisterous lounge (with 68 seats, several flat-screen TVs, a blaring sound system and a giant 32-seat bar in the center of it all) to the vast, sleekly designed, high-ceilinged dining room, which provides seating at individual tables and at counters overlooking the sunken sushi and the robata grill kitchens (where chefs stand at eye level with customers).
     As we slipped into comfortable chairs at an elegantly set wood-topped table, we were brought water and told a server would be with us in a  moment. We had no reason to expect otherwise, as we counted less than a dozen diners in the 90-seat room. But the minutes ticked by, and none of the half dozen servers made so much as eye contact with us. Something had been lost in translation. After 25 minutes, I went back to the hostess and told her what was, or rather wasn’t, happening. Within a minute or two, the house manager, Michael, arrived at our table, sincerely contrite. Many apologies later, he left us in Ken’s hands, and by the end of the evening, not only had we enjoyed a wonderful meal, with courses brought to our table in expertly synchronized timing, we’d also been comped our first round of drinks — a generous pour of a Rosenblum Zinfandel ($9) and a three-glass flight of sake ($14) — and Ken had spent time with us discussing the nuances of sake and sharing stories about his family history in Japan.
     During our second dinner, on a busy Wednesday night when both the lounge
and the dining room were packed and noisy, the service was more perfunctory — cordial and efficient, but impersonal
and occasionally hurried.
     What remained consistent were the cornerstones of Ozumo’s appeal: the drop-dead gorgeous décor, a just-beyond-minimalist harmony of slate, granite, copper, wood, exposed pipes and ducts, large-scale abstract artwork and sumptuous lighting; and the superbly prepared and plated fare that merges Japanese aesthetics (something Truman Capote once called “ostentatious barrenness”) and ingredients with American fusion inclinations. Brought to Oakland by Jeremy Umland as an offshoot of his original San Francisco establishment, Ozumo joins its next-door neighbor, Picán, in taking the Uptown sensibility of modern opulence to a new level. It feels like a place where you’d take a date to make an impression or a business colleague to cut a deal.
     Prices keep full dinners the prefecture of the affluent. But the tilt toward izakaya (Japanese tapas, more or less), which takes advantage of the current small plates trend, also makes it possible for budget-conscious diners to grab a drink and a nosh after work or before a show at the Paramount or Fox without breaking the bank. Charcoal-grilled vegetables and robata skewers are especially good deals. Of 15 choices, we felt our money well spent at $5 for imo (roasted sweet potato), $6 for tsukune (subtly spiced chicken-pork meatballs) and $7 for buta (succulent Kurobuta pork belly with spicy miso). Other selections include ebi shio-yaki (salt-grilled head-on blue prawns, $7), me kabetsu (Brussels sprouts with chili garlic, $5), kinoko (shiitake and king oyster mushrooms, $5), and gyu (Angus filet mignon with shishito, $7).
      Beyond those dishes and the reasonable tempura (veggie or calamari, $9), two-piece orders of nigiri sushi ($5–$10) — the beni toro (salmon belly, $8) was dreamy — and such routine starters as edamame ($5), miso soup ($4) and seaweed salad ($7) and the simplest sushi rolls, you’re in double-digit territory that just gets steeper. But Robin and I felt that every dish paid off, on both the plate and the tongue. Picture-perfect presentation on large, sculptural dishware, consistent execution and deft balancing of complex flavors softened the sting of paying $10 for a glass of Nishida “Denshu” junmai sake, $16 for hanabi (prettily arranged slices of yellowtail and avocado drizzled with ginger-jalapeno ponzu), $24 for some of the most delicious (oishii) slow-braised short ribs I’ve ever tasted (Niman ranch beef cubes architecturally stacked on circles of daikon radish with a red miso sauce) and $28 for exquisitely plump seared scallops (bedded on shrimp-mushroom risotto, garnished with kumquat-shiso compote).
     Ozumo’s understated abundance tempts you to drop a bundle. Exotic vodka, gin, rum, tequila, sake and green tea liqueur cocktails, a solid wine list and some 90 sakes (from quotidian to rare, all thoroughly described) beckon the imbiber. The “signature dishes” — ginger-glazed chicken ($19), marinated and grilled black cod ($29), grilled lamb chops ($33), two steak variations (bacon-wrapped filet mignon, $33, and cubed New York strip, $32) and the cook-at-the-table shabu shabu (beef, mushrooms, tofu) — should ring any omnivore’s bell. And the desserts we tried, sesame panna cotta and double fudge brownie (both $8) dazzled the eye and surprised the palate. Whether what we ate was typical Japanese or not, it all was oishii.

Ozumo. Japanese. 2251 Broadway, Oakland, (510) 286-9866, ozumo.com/oakland