Sushidokoro Yamato

Of every counter we have mapped in Kagawa, Sushidokoro Yamato comes closest to the form a sushi purist pictures when the word counter is spoken: eight seats arranged along an L-shaped plank, no table seating to dilute the room, and a single chef working the fish in front of you. Nothing here is staged for a crowd, because there is no crowd — only the box, the wood, and the husband-and-wife rhythm of a small house that has decided depth matters more than volume.

What the chef brings to the Seto Inland Sea (瀬戸内海) is an Edomae sensibility carried from a Tokyo lineage — he learned the basics at Ginza's Koju (小十) and then trained at Nihonbashi Kakigaracho Sugita (すぎた) before opening this room in August 2021, and the discipline shows in the work: fish that has been dressed, cured, and rested rather than merely sliced. The inland sea is a gentler, shallower water than the open Pacific, and it gives a sushi chef a particular palette — tai (鯛), the sea bream that Setouchi prizes above almost any fish; sawara (鰆), the Spanish mackerel that comes into its own in spring; seasonal shellfish from the warm, calm channels between the islands. Yamato treats that palette with city-trained restraint, leaning on nigiri rather than a long parade of small plates.

The price is part of why this room belongs in the guide. Dinner lands at roughly ¥13,000, with Tabelog placing the budget band between ¥10,000 and ¥14,999 — comfortably inside our envelope and leaving room for sake and the kind of unhurried evening a counter this size invites. It is not the most expensive sushi in Takamatsu, nor does it try to be. It is the room where the ratio of craft to cost, in a prefecture better known for udon, runs most clearly in the diner's favor.

Two honest caveats. The Tabelog score of 3.52 rests on only thirty-seven reviews — a strong local reputation rather than a nationally tested one, and a sample small enough that it should be read as encouraging, not conclusive. And while third-party diners report photographing their meals without trouble, the house has published no policy, so treat photography as confirm at booking. Reserve by phone or through AutoReserve, ask plainly about the evening's price and whether quiet, flash-free photos of the food are welcome, and arrive ready to let eight seats and one chef set the pace.