Japanese brush calligraphy logo featuring kanji characters 漁と炭 and Romaji text reading KUSHI TO SUMI.
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Japanese brush calligraphy logo featuring kanji characters 漁と炭 and Romaji text reading KUSHI TO SUMI.
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The Concept

(Concept)

The Fishmonger, the Chef, and a Sushi Bar with No Chairs

Most restaurants start with a chef and go looking for fish. Sushi to Sumi started the other way around.

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Medium close-up shot of a chef holding a wooden tray filled with a freshly prepared selection of raw seafood cuts, including scallops, sweet shrimp, and sliced fish.

(Concept)

It Begins at the Source

Before there was a restaurant, there was Araya Shouten. A premium Japanese fishmonger built by Araya-San over years spent inside Japan’s seafood trade: the logistics, the auctions, the supplier relationships, the unglamorous discipline of moving fish at its best from water to counter.

That work taught him something most diners never see. The difference between good sushi and great sushi is mostly decided before the chef ever picks up a knife. It’s decided at the source. Which fish, from which water, in which week of which season, handled by whom.

Araya-San built Sushi to Sumi to put that knowledge on a plate. Direct sourcing lines that reach beyond Tokyo’s Toyosu Market to Hokkaido. A menu that follows the season instead of a laminated list. And a simple rule inherited from the fishmonger’s trade: respect the whole fish.

The kama, the fish head collar is grilled, not wasted. The bones become the day’s miso soup. Nothing good gets thrown away.

The name says the rest. 鮨と炭. Sushi and charcoal. The two things we do, properly.

Close-up shot of a Japanese sushi chef using delicate wooden chopsticks to place fresh sea urchin (uni) onto a sushi piece, beside a wooden box of premium Hokkaido uni.

(Our Chef)

The Man Behind the Counter

Chef Hashimoto Yasuo

The man runs the counter. What matters day to day is the partnership. Araya-San builds the relationships; Hashimoto-San decides what it becomes.

A fish that’s perfect for nigiri is served as nigiri. A fish that wants fire goes to the charcoal. When the season turns, the menu turns with it and the counter is close enough that you can ask him why.

Hashimoto Yasuo, who runs the counter at Sushi to Sumi, stands with arms folded wearing a white chef coat and glasses against a light textured wall.

(THE EXPERIENCE)

Why You'll Be Standing at Lunch

Here is the part that makes us the only one of our kind in Singapore. In fact, no other sushi restaurants in Singapore have a stand only sushi bar counter.

At lunch, Sushi to Sumi has no seats. You stand at the bar, the way office workers in Tokyo have eaten sushi for generations. The way sushi was actually born, as fast, standing, everyday food built on the quality of the day’s catch.

Interior view of the standing counter at Sushi to Sumi, featuring a long wooden counter running the length of the narrow dining space. The minimalist restaurant is softly lit with warm tones, with the open preparation area visible behind the counter and dark curtains hanging at the entrance to the kitchen area.

It was street food before it was ceremony.

We think it lost something on the way up.

Standing isn't a gimmick and it isn't a compromise.

It’s the honest format for a CBD lunch hour: you walk in, the fish is already at its best, you eat well, and you’re back at your desk in 30 – 45 minutes. No waiting for a table. No two-hour pacing. No sad salad because “there wasn’t time for anything proper.”

There was time. There just wasn't a bar like this. Now there is.

One floor up at 20 Cecil St, in the middle of Raffles Place.

(DINNER EXPERIENCE)

Come Evening, Pull Up a Chair

01

A Different Rhythm

Dinner runs at a different rhythm. The lights come down, the charcoal does more of the talking, and yes there are seats.

02

Take Your Time

Evenings at Sushi to Sumi are for taking your time: working through the seasonal nigiri, ordering the grilled fish you smelled at lunch, a short sake list, one good dessert.

03

No Ceremony, Just Great Fish

Still no ceremony, still the same fish. Just a slower, more intimate way through it. Come solo, bring one person, or settle in after work.

04

Same Source. Different Pace.

Same source. Same counter. Different pace.

Skewers of meat cook on a wire grill above glowing charcoal embers in a traditional charcoal-fired cooking station. Warm firelight highlights the grill and the texture of the ash-covered coals beneath.
Close-up shot of a chef presenting a wooden platter displaying an array of fresh raw sashimi slices, including tuna, white fish, and sweet prawns.

(THE WAY OF SUSHI)

What We Believe

Quality is decided at the source, not the counter.
The season writes the menu.
Ceremony is optional. Discipline isn’t.
Respect the whole fish.

The rest is better tasted than read.

Lunch is standing, dinner is seated, and the fish doesn’t wait around either way.

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