Restaurant in Vancouver, Canada
Five seats, Michelin-starred, hard to book.
Sushi Masuda holds a Michelin Star and an Opinionated About Dining Top Restaurants in Japan ranking — from a five-seat counter accessed through a print shop on West Hastings. At the $$$$ price tier, it is the most technically precise omakase option in Vancouver. Booking is genuinely hard; plan well ahead and consider returning more than once to get the most from it.
Five seats. That number tells you almost everything you need to know about Sushi Masuda. With just a handful of spots at the counter each evening, this is one of the hardest reservations to secure in Vancouver — and, based on its 2024 Michelin Star and Opinionated About Dining ranking of #460 in Japan (2025), one of the few in the city that genuinely justifies the effort. At the $$$$ price tier, you are paying for precision, restraint, and an experience that improves the more times you return.
The address is 1066 W Hastings Street, but finding Sushi Masuda is half the exercise. The counter is tucked into the corner of an unrelated business, accessed through the glass doors of a print shop. Once inside, the room is plain and spare — there is no theatrical décor, no ambient soundtrack calibrated for mood, no visual spectacle. The atmosphere is close, quiet, and focused. This is a room that asks you to pay attention to what is on the plate. For a special occasion dinner, that intensity reads as intimacy rather than austerity, particularly given the warm front-of-house hospitality provided by Akari Masuda, whose attentiveness keeps the room from feeling austere.
Chef Rei Masuda , whose training at a leading counter in Tokyo is evident throughout , produces omakase work defined by delicacy and restraint rather than abundance. The Opinionated About Dining citation specifically notes preparations ranging from a monkfish liver course to a beltfish cooked with sake and kombu, before arriving at the nigiri sequence, where ingredient quality and technical precision both land. This is not a counter built around showmanship. It is built around the cumulative effect of meticulous choices made over the course of a meal.
Given the five-seat format and the level of precision involved, Sushi Masuda is a counter worth thinking about across two or three visits rather than a single outing. On a first visit, let the meal unfold without expectation. The omakase format means Chef Masuda is making decisions based on what is available and what is at peak condition , your job is to follow, not to anticipate. First-timers should arrive early in the dinner window (5 pm opening, service runs to 11 pm, Monday through Sunday) to ensure the kitchen is working at its highest energy rather than winding down.
A second visit is where the counter reveals more. Once you know the pacing and the register , the move from cooked preparations toward the nigiri sequence , you can engage differently. Ask questions. Note what has shifted seasonally. The five-seat format allows for a level of dialogue that larger omakase rooms cannot offer. If you visit in winter, the cold-water fish that define the leading Japanese counters are at their peak; a follow-up visit in late spring or early summer will show you a different, lighter expression of the same philosophy. Comparing those two visits is, frankly, the most useful thing a serious diner can do here.
By a third visit, if you are a regular, the experience compounds. Akari Masuda's hospitality is noted explicitly in the Opinionated About Dining citation , the warmth is not incidental, it is structural. Returning guests benefit from that continuity in a way that one-time visitors cannot access. For context, this dynamic is also present at Masayoshi, Vancouver's other serious Japanese counter, though the registers differ: Masayoshi leans into a more chef-forward, personality-driven experience, while Sushi Masuda is quieter and more technically restrained.
Dinner only, seven days a week, 5 to 11 pm. There is no lunch service, so the question of timing is really about when to book rather than which meal to choose. Weeknights are your leading practical bet for securing a reservation , weekend slots at a five-seat counter disappear fast. For seasonal timing, the case for a winter visit is strong: cold-water species like beltfish and seasonal shellfish are at their leading between November and February, which aligns well with the style of cooking the OAD citation describes. That said, given how rarely seats become available at all, book whenever you can get a slot and plan the season-specific return visit from there.
For a special occasion, Sushi Masuda is a sound call if the occasion calls for focused, quiet intensity rather than energy and spectacle. A milestone birthday or anniversary dinner here will be remembered for the precision of the food and the care of the service rather than for the room or the noise. If you want a high-energy celebratory atmosphere, look elsewhere , Kissa Tanto or AnnaLena will suit a livelier occasion better. But for the kind of special dinner where the meal itself is the event, this counter delivers.
Booking here is genuinely hard. Five seats means that even a moderate surge in interest leaves most diners on the outside. Plan to book as far ahead as the reservation system allows , do not treat this as a same-week decision. Phone and website details are not publicly listed in Pearl's current data, so check Google or a concierge service for the most current booking method. The address is 1066 W Hastings Street; navigating to the entrance requires attention given the print shop access point. Dress code is not formally stated, but at the $$$$ price tier with a Michelin Star, smart casual is the correct read , the room is quiet enough that what you wear registers.
For comparable Japanese omakase experiences in Vancouver, Masayoshi, Okeya Kyujiro, and Sushi Bar Maumi are the relevant comparators. Nationally, if you are measuring Sushi Masuda against Canada's broader fine dining tier, the conversation includes Kaiseki Yu-zen Hashimoto in Toronto and, at the opposite end of the format spectrum, Alo in Toronto. Internationally, the benchmark for this style of counter is set by rooms like Le Bernardin in New York City , not in cuisine, but in the quality of attention paid to each seat.
If you are building a broader Vancouver dining itinerary around this meal, our full Vancouver restaurants guide, bars guide, and hotels guide are worth reading alongside this page.
Quick reference: $$$$ · Dinner only · Mon–Sun 5–11 pm · 1066 W Hastings St · Michelin 1 Star (2024) · OAD Leading Restaurants in Japan #460 (2025) · Book as far ahead as possible , five seats, hard to get.
| Venue | Price | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Sushi Masuda | $$$$ | — |
| AnnaLena | $$$$ | — |
| iDen & QuanJuDe Beijing Duck House | $$$$ | — |
| Kissa Tanto | $$$$ | — |
| Masayoshi | $$$$ | — |
| Published on Main | $$$ | — |
A quick look at how Sushi Masuda measures up.
check the venue's official channels before booking — at a five-seat counter with a set omakase format, the kitchen needs advance notice to accommodate any restrictions. A counter this small has no flexibility mid-service; if your restrictions are significant, flag them at the time of reservation or consider whether an omakase format is the right fit.
Dinner only — Sushi Masuda does not serve lunch. Service runs 5 to 11 pm, seven days a week, so the only real timing question is which evening to book. Earlier in the week is typically easier to secure; Friday and Saturday fill fastest given the five-seat limit.
The counter is the entire experience — there are only five seats, and all of them face Chef Rei Masuda directly. There is no separate bar or lounge seating. If you are looking for a more casual drop-in format, Sushi Masuda is not designed for that; this is a fully committed, reservation-only counter.
Yes, with one caveat: the intimacy of five seats makes it one of the more private dining settings in Vancouver, which works well for a couple or a small group. The combination of a Michelin star, the OAD Top 460 ranking, and Chef Rei Masuda's precision-focused omakase gives the meal genuine occasion weight. Just book well in advance — five seats means availability disappears fast.
At a $$$$ price point, Sushi Masuda holds up against its credentials: a 2024 Michelin star and an OAD Top 460 ranking are not common for a five-seat counter operating out of the corner of an unrelated business. The value case depends on your format preference — if you want omakase precision from a chef with serious Tokyo counter experience, it delivers. If you want a la carte flexibility, look elsewhere.
No dress code is documented for Sushi Masuda, but the format — a Michelin-starred, five-seat counter at $$$$ — signals that dressed-up casual is the sensible baseline. Avoid anything that would draw attention away from the meal. The room is plain and spare by design; the experience is the food, not the setting.
Masayoshi on Granville Island is the closest comparable — another serious Japanese counter with strong local standing. Kissa Tanto is a better option if you want Japanese-Italian and a livelier room rather than omakase focus. For a broader fine-dining comparison, Published on Main and AnnaLena both offer tasting-menu formats at a lower price point. If Peking duck is the occasion, iDen & QuanJuDe Beijing Duck House is a different cuisine entirely but worth knowing for group dinners.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
