Sushi Taka

Hirosaki (弘前) is a town that rewards the patient traveler — a castle, a cherry-blossom moat that ranks among Japan's most famous, apple orchards climbing toward Mount Iwaki — and Sushi Taka is a counter that asks for the same patience. It is fully reservation-only and course-only; you do not drop in, and you do not order off a board. What arrives is a sequence, and the sequence is the point.

In July 2024 the restaurant rebuilt itself, moving into a new room within a ten-minute walk of Hirosaki Station. Nine seats line the counter, with a single private room for up to six behind it — small enough to keep the single-seating calm the framework looks for, close enough to the station to fold into a day of castle and orchards without a car. Expect a quiet, deliberate progression rather than a show.

The structure is closer to kappo-meets-sushi than to a pure edomae nigiri run: a sakizuke (先付) opener, a grilled course, a la carte plates of the season, and nigiri threaded through the meal. That makes it a sake counter as much as a sushi counter — and, unusually, the kitchen will bend the ratio to your appetite. Tell them you came for the nigiri and want fewer side plates, or that you'd rather linger over hot dishes and a bottle, and they adjust. It is the kind of flexibility that only a small, owner-run room can offer.

Two courses anchor the menu, listed at ¥7,000 and ¥12,000 before tax — roughly ¥7,700 and ¥13,200 all-in, both well inside the ¥30,000 ceiling. The higher course is the one to take if the bay's best is what you came north for. Because the room is newly reopened, its public review trail is still short, so treat this as a database recommendation rather than a visited verdict, and confirm the current course content, the all-in price, and the photography policy when you reserve.