Bluefin Sushi

The sushi restaurant at 3073 Canal Towpath NW is at the address that the Canal Towpath designation signals: alongside the C and O Canal, the historic waterway that runs the length of Georgetown’s southern border and that has served as a recreational path and a Georgetown landmark since the canal’s working life ended and the National Park Service took over its management. The towpath-adjacent location gives Bluefin Sushi a physical setting that is unusual in the Georgetown restaurant landscape, with the canal visible from the dining room and the historic lock structures of Georgetown’s section of the canal providing the visual context.

Sushi in the Georgetown market competes in a restaurant category that the neighborhood has developed more extensively than most neighborhoods of its size. The waterfront dining tradition on the Georgetown canal and the Potomac, combined with the professional and diplomatic population’s comfort with Japanese cuisine, has produced a consistent demand for quality sushi that several Georgetown restaurants address. Bluefin Sushi’s canal towpath address gives it a setting distinction from the M Street sushi restaurants.

The sushi program covers the range of the Japanese sushi tradition from the nigiri presentations, where fish is placed over a formed rice pillow and seasoned with soy and wasabi, through the maki rolls that are the most accessible format for the American sushi consumer, to the sashimi presentations where the fish is served without rice for the customer who wants to taste the fish’s quality directly. The quality of the fish sourcing determines the quality of the outcome at a sushi restaurant more than the kitchen technique does, because sushi preparation’s simplicity removes the cooking process as a masking or enhancing factor.

The canal towpath address is accessible from the Georgetown waterfront and from the M Street end of the canal, which drops to the towpath level through the historic lock structures. Hours run Tuesday through Thursday from noon to 10pm, Friday and Saturday from noon to 11pm, and Sunday from noon to 9pm. The canal towpath address gives Bluefin Sushi a physical context that is unusual among Georgetown restaurants. The C and O Canal, which runs alongside the restaurant, was built between 1828 and 1850 to move coal and agricultural goods from western Maryland to Georgetown’s Potomac port, and the towpath that mules used to pull the canal boats is now a recreational trail that runs 184 miles from Georgetown to Cumberland, Maryland. The restaurant at 3073 Canal Towpath NW is at the Georgetown end of this historic trail, which gives it the historic setting that the canal’s lock houses and stone walls provide. Dining beside the canal in the evening, with the water visible and the historic masonry of the lock structures nearby, is the specific Georgetown waterfront experience that the address provides. The sushi format at Bluefin serves this setting well: the clean flavors and the minimal presentation of the Japanese sushi tradition complement the understated character of the canal environment.