Susheria

Susheria at 3101 K Street NW is a sushi restaurant in the K Street Georgetown commercial cluster at the canal level, in the section of K Street that runs between the M Street commercial district above and the C and O Canal below. The sushi restaurant format at this address serves the Georgetown waterfront dining market alongside the other K Street food establishments, providing the Japanese raw fish tradition in the waterfront commercial setting.

Sushi in the format that an American sushi restaurant presents has evolved considerably since the format was first introduced to the American market in the 1970s and 1980s in the West Coast cities with large Japanese-American populations. The early American sushi was primarily the maki roll format, often with the California roll’s avocado and cucumber substituting for the raw fish that the American market was not yet ready to embrace. The evolution of the American sushi customer’s palate, and the increased availability of quality fish from both American and Japanese sources, has expanded the format to include the full range of the Japanese raw fish tradition.

The nigiri, which is the hand-formed rice mound with a slice of raw fish draped over it and the appropriate condiment applied by the sushi chef, is the purest expression of the sushi tradition: the quality of the fish, the temperature and seasoning of the rice, and the technique of the chef are all visible in a single piece. The Georgetown sushi customer who orders omakase, the chef’s selection, places their trust in the sushi chef’s judgment about what the day’s fish quality supports, which produces the most satisfying sushi experience that the format allows.

The K Street waterfront address at 3101 gives Susheria a position in the Georgetown canal-level commercial district. Hours run from 11:30am most days and noon Sunday. The K Street canal-level commercial district at 3101 serves a different customer population from the M Street commercial corridor above: the waterfront-adjacent community that uses the K Street level for dining, the Georgetown Waterfront Park visitors who move between the park and the canal-level restaurants, and the residential Georgetown population who accesses the waterfront through the 31st Street and other cross-streets that connect M Street to the canal below. Susheria at 3101 K Street serves this waterfront population with the sushi format that Georgetown’s Japanese dining market has developed a consistent appetite for. The waterfront location adds the outdoor-adjacent quality that the K Street setting provides: the proximity to the Georgetown Waterfront Park gives the sushi restaurant a context that the interior dining rooms of the Wisconsin Avenue and M Street sushi restaurants do not have. The omakase option at a sushi restaurant of this caliber provides the most complete expression of the kitchen’s ability: the chef who selects the evening’s preparations from the day’s fish quality can produce a sequence that no menu-based order can replicate, and the Georgetown customer who has developed enough confidence to leave the selection to the chef will eat better than the customer who orders from the menu. Hours run from 11:30am most days and noon Sunday.