Here's How More Sushi Restaurants Are Leaning Into Sustainability (2024)

Morgan Adamson never set out to run a sustainable sushi restaurant.

But as a proverbial small fish — the chef of a six-seat sushi counter nestled in the basem*nt of Saks Fifth Avenue adjacent to the online returns window — in the very large pond that is New York’s upscale dining scene, sustainability became inherent to building and running a menu that local diners love and return for.

At Hosēki, an emerald velvet curtain and Americana playlist separate the department store from the luxe eatery. Designer-suit-clad corporate types, shoppers, and creatives book $98 hour-long 12-course lunches featuring local, sustainable seafood like oysters from Long Island’s North Fork and the prized Montauk red shrimp.

Michigan-born Adamson is one of few women across America to run an omakase counter, and as a newcomer, sourcing for a small restaurant in one of the world’s top restaurant cities wasn’t easy. In lieu of subpar Japanese and imported seafood, she veered local, a tactic increasingly prioritized by sushi chefs across the country, prioritizing sustainability and community.

“I was kind of apprehensive at first, but I found fishmongers in the area that have worked with sushi chefs and know what sushi chefs want,” Adamson says. Being able to visit oyster farms, watch videos of fish bleeding out on the boats for peak freshness, and meeting the people handling the sea creatures ensures quality — a tradition Adamson learned at her first sushi job in the kitchen at Kissaki, which emphasized the practice of honoring the fish. “New Yorkers are so proud to be New Yorkers, we should be honoring the fish that are here,” she says. “And supporting the people who work here too.”

Hosēki’s intimate nature allows Adamson to share stories about where each ingredient originates to an audience increasingly interested in sourcing and storytelling about the product. True to the nature of omakase, the restaurant’s menu is ever-changing, a chef’s choice depending on the day and season.

“If someone's gonna sit down and say, ‘I trust you, feed me’ I feel like I have a responsibility to have something to say about the product, and also know that it’s doing something good for the environment,” Adamson says. And no one really wants to hear about picking up frozen tuna belly in a styrofoam cooler at Newark Airport. “Being a corn-fed Midwesterner, I just can’t help but be so honest, you know? So if someone asks me a question, it matters to me. Diners in New York have had their fair share of omakase. They know what’s good.”

In addition to increasingly local seafood sourcing, Adamson uses vintage glassware for her vinegar and serves her nigiri on hand-blown glass from her Papa in Michigan. Fishbones are all saved to simmer into a fish head soup that starts each meal. And on Wednesdays — soup cooking day — it earns guests a bonus fish cheek hand roll.

Sustainability is more than an east-to-west sushi trend. It's slowly becoming the status quo

Farther east in Midtown Manhattan, Crave Sushi Bar also emphasizes sustainability, with à la carte nigiri like Hudson Valley trout and a warm Jonah crab roll tempting diners on Second Avenue. Downtown and across the bridge in Brooklyn, many more New York sushi counters prioritize sustainability via eco-conscious menu offerings, fair wages, low-waste practices, and beyond.

The trend, or perhaps more accurately, conscientious shift, extends far beyond New York.

West Coast chain Bambo Sushi boasts being the country’s first 100% sustainable sushi restaurant circa 2009, with locations in Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and California — donating 1% of annual sales of certified sustainable salmon nigiri flights and spicy albacore crispy rice to environmental nonprofits.

Meanwhile, over in Seattle, employee-owned Mashiko emphasizes traceability with every seafood option, a pricing and research challenge, but a passion of co-owner Allison Hill. “We’re really honored to be a part of this community and share our love and knowledge with others,” they say. “If more people ate a variety of sea creatures, it would be better for us all, including the oceans.” Local fishers, foragers, and small businesses help Mashiko source a sustainable menu, rife with giant Pacific octopus sourced from bycatch, pole-caught Hawaiian yellowfin — plus vegan maki and house-made tofu curry. Hill attributes neighborly relationships to the restaurant’s ability to maintain its sustainable status since 2009.

Operating on a coast isn’t essential for a sustainable sushi restaurant, with a handful thriving in the Midwest.

Just outside of Detroit in the northern suburb of Clawson, James Beard-nominated chef Hajime Sato — who happens to be the founder of Mashiko — prioritizes seafood sustainability at his restaurant, Sozai. Seasonal, low-impact ingredients like East Coast sourced tsubugai (sea snails), whole pink Alaskan scallops, and barnacles appear on the menu along with more popular items, like albacore tataki.

Minneapolis’ Kyatchi only serves fishes designated as “green” by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch, composts and recycles in-house, and packages takeout with exclusively compostable and sustainable materials.

Typically, restaurants try to lure in customers with menu items like fatty tuna, but sustainability creates a barrier. “The list of ‘green’ fish put out by the MBA is not a large list, and sustainable fish are always more expensive than non-sustainable fish,” says Sam Peterson, co-owner of Kyatchi in Minneapolis. “That cost is mostly passed on to our customers in higher menu prices, that have a way of preventing some people from dining with us.”

Sustainable sushi as a matter of budgets and bottom lines

The economics of sustainability, like so much of American culture, depend on what folks consider splurge-worthy. When does convenience, or the illusion of wealth, a desire to exist among the upper echelon, transcend the reality that “mass ocean extinction” is looming? “I worry about our future fish supply all the time,” says Peterson. “Sushi is one of those things that middle-class people buy to feel like they are upper class. If the world doesn’t figure out how to make our sushi habits sustainable, we could easily be looking at fewer sushi options over the next few decades.”

Are cheap yellowtail rolls and crunchy spicy tuna worth the next generation never knowing the joys of sushi? The choice is up to diners. But there’s some good news: The more sushi restaurants that lean into sustainability, the more unique, intriguing, and frankly, splurge-worthy sushi Americans will see.

“Tradition is so important, but if you do something with sushi that’s different, if it’s done well, it’s easy to stand out,” says Jeff Miller, owner of Manhattan’s Bar Miller in the East Village — an intimate omakase counter offering a $250, 15-course menu with an optional $125 beverage pairing that highlights wine and cider grown and made in New York State.

For the eight-seat restaurant’s full-utilization approach, chefs must get creative, often landing on the most interesting and lauded dishes. Seafood trimmings are saved for seafood sliders at the restaurant’s sibling, Rosella. Shrimp odds and ends are dehydrated and transformed into XO sauce that diners beg to bottle up and take home. “These boundaries make you think a little more about the foods you’re making,” says Miller. “When you use ingredients you don’t initially have a plan for, you get some of the best dishes.”

If you’ve ever concluded a meal at Bar Miller with a crisp tostada made from fish scabs and topped with bluefin tartare, followed by seasonal ice cream topped with sustainable California caviar, you know he’s absolutely right.