Ora

I would say, the best sushi in Chicago! very fresh fish, skilled sushi chef, friendly servers, reasonable pricing. I enjoyed my experience here at Ora. One big disappointment was the hot tea, vanilla pumpkin spice favored tea. I was not sure but it was not a green tea. It didn’t go well with Sushi/​Sashimi. There is a reason why a simple green tea (sen-​cha/​ban-​cha) is served with Sushi. Green tea has tannins that are good for your digestive tract. It’s also loaded with catechin antioxidants, and is believed to be effective in eliminating the bacteria vibrio, one of the leading causes of food poisoning. It’s same idea as vinegary rice, wasabi, ginger. Everything else, I loved it. I will go back there again with my own green tea.

Some of the best sushi I’ve ever had in Chicago! Servers were very friendly and the restaurant has a great ambiance :) definitely recommend!

Best Sushi in Chicago! You will not find better. Make sure to make a reservation as it’s always busy for obvious reasons.

The sushi was good but lacking something. Our server was good and the place itself was a small intimate space with good ambiance. Being a sushi fan, I wasn’t crazy about all the dishes.

This would be an easy five stars if the host didn’t rush us from our table. «Are you done with this?» No. [Takes it anyway.] If someone were waiting for our table, it still would’ve been rude but I wouldn’t have been as bothered. No one was waiting.
The food is ridiculously tasty and surprisingly hearty for sushi. It’s an interesting menu. The room is nice, bustling, no-​frills but attractive. Ora is a great date spot. So it’s disappointing to have the spell broken so abruptly. It was like a leisurely drive that ended with a squirrel smashing through the windshield.
Forgetting that diners often choose restaurants for the experience as much as the food is an unforgivable sin. I’ll be happy to return when there’s someone different working the door, and not needlessly bussing tables.

Great local sushi spot with fresh fish. The price is competitive and the portion is great with a focus on fish rather than overloading with rice. I definitely recommend calling ahead for reservation or carry out as it can take a while to prepare.
Favorites:
Beni Toro/​Salmon Belly
Madai/​Sea Bream
Sake/​Salmon
Escolar
Salmon Avocado Maki
Escolar Jalapeño Maki

My go-​to sushi place in the city. It boggles my mind how it hasn’t received a Bib Gourmand selection from Michelin (it may even be worthy of a star).
The fish is always flavorful and tender. Their unique seasonings and sauces makes it a no-​soy-​sauce experience (the waiters will be sure to remind you of this). Their seared tuna nigiri almost literally melts in your mouth.
Excellent service, consistent quality (we’ve gone about 10 times a year for 5 years now).
Will definitely return.

This place just sneaks up on you.
It’s rather non-​descript, it’s in Andersonville, which even though is where I live is not the hippest ‘hood in Chicago these days, Ora is literally overshadowed by Hopleaf from across the street, yet I feel confident in saying that this is my favorite sushi restaurant in the entire city.
The design is low-​lit, sleek, modern, romantic, and ambient. The staff is attentive and helpful. But the main reason you get sushi is because of the sushi! And Ora delivers.
I went on a double date and we ordered a lot, and nearly everything was fantastic.
We started with the edemame and seaweed salad getting our bellies ready for the main event. As for nigiri we ordered the Albacore Tuna, Yellowtail Belly, and Salmon. I would recommend all three of these nigiris, ESPECIALLY the Yellowtail Belly. It’s rare to find, but is so so so tasty.
As for the rolls we had the Spicy Tuna, Spicy Blue Crab, Asparagus Tempura, Nooky, Albacore Tuna Special Roll, and the Garden Roll. All the rolls were fantastic.
To top it off this place is BYO, which helps brings the bill down a little bit, and considering how great this sushi is, it’s not «that» bad” in regards to cost.
I absolutely recommend Ora and think it has some of the best sushi in the city so definitely don’t sleep on this place!

Best sushi EVER. Do yourself a favor and get the chef’s choice. If you really don’t like a certain type of fish (like I can’t eat squid) they will make a chef’s choice WITHOUT something, but you can’t request anything to be added to it. Also, the hot tea is delicious. It’s the perfect meal.

I met the owner tonight who introduced me to the omakase course! The best sushi this side of San Jose’s Tomi-​Sushi!

I still love Ora, but I need to give a general announcement to Ora’s patrons:
The lighting is low. I get that. But there is no reason to turn your phone’s flashlight on and then shine it around the restaurant as you gesticulate during your conversation about a friend’s colonoscopy. It is a small place and maybe this is acceptable in Newark (we all heard you’re from Newark), but it’s not in the midwest. Every time I go there I get at least one phone flashlight in the face. You know you can use the front of your phone to slightly illuminate the menu, as well, right?

This place is fantastic! Truly a perfect 5! I’ve been here a handful of times and each visit has been spot on:
Service — impeccable.
Food — unbelievably tasty sushi, best I’ve ever had.
Ambience — intimate, romantic, upbeat, yet chill. Great tunes.
BYOB! GO!

Hands down my favorite sushi spot in Chicago!!! You seriously can’t go wrong with anything on the menu. However, the salmon belly nigiri is my favorite thing on the menu. I could eat that for that rest of my life and die happy.
Oh, and it’s BYOB. Doesn’t get better than Ora!

I’ve got a Salmonella from their nigiri/​rolls. Went there on Sunday July 12.
Had Botan Ebi (sweet shirimp), Madai, Seared Salmon, Chirashi roll, Snake Eyes, Surf&turf.
Too bad, I was really excited to check this place out.
The service was excellent though and all servers and the blond host was very kind and attentive.

Outstanding, fresh fish
Ridiculously great presentation
Amazing service and prices
You can’t beat Ora. Best sushi in Chicago, hands down. The next time I’m going, I’m ordering the entire nigiri menu. Advanced apology to the guy at the nigiri station – you’re gonna be slammed with my ticket. I’ll bring you beer or your choice of liquor, I swears it.

I was having a sushi craving. And not one that could be satisfied by the seafood/​sushi counter at Jewel. Or Whole Foods’ love for brown rice in their sushi rolls. I wanted the real stuff. The only thing that would able to satisfy this craving is a huge, signature maki roll where you can almost not see the white rice because the roll is topped with an abundance of other goodies/​fishies. But even still, it’s definitely made with white rice. I’m all about the white rice guys.
My friend and I headed to Ora on Friday night at about 9:45 PM for a late, late dinner. Since both of us returned from separate vacations where we both had the habit of ordering too much to eat, we decided to scale back just a little bit — we ordered the Dynamite Specialty Maki roll and a Spicy Salmon roll.
BAM! The Dynamite Roll was amazing! Tbh, I can’t remember everything that it had in it, but whatever covered the top of the roll (maybe scallops?) was delicious. The roll came with 5 pieces, so it’s definitely a little pricey for sushi, but well worth it. The roll was great and both my friend and I agreed that we hadn’t had anything like it before. The spicy salmon roll, although may appear to be a normal selection, was also great. The pieces were pretty large in comparison to other spicy salmon rolls I’ve ordered and was pretty good. The service and ambiance were also on point. I’d definitely come back again just to get lit from the Dynamite Roll.

Love. This place is really tasty.
It’s up on Clark and sometimes parking can be a bit spotty but it’s worth it. Did I mention you should just come during the week, or maybe solo or one other person? My first time here was on like a Tuesday night and we had the ah-​mazing Lex taking care of us. We loved all the food we had: miso (they tried a new dashi that night), 2 rolls and a few special sushi options as Lex’s suggestion.
We went again last Friday and you would have thought the food was free. The place was packed all night. It started to let up around 9:30! Make a reservation silly! Plus it’s not that big a place, so big parties would not work well here. But that’s ok, we waiting and got seated around 9pm and although Lex was there, Derek waited on us. All of the staff is really friendly and they run a tight ship.
We had the albacore tuna and spicy scallop rolls and they were delicious. The miso was good also. Plus we sat at the sushi bar and got to watch all of the action. Chicago should have a deck of cards with all of the city’s sushi chefs on them.
Oh, did I forget to mention that it’s BYOB?! Amazeballs!

You know, I really had my doubts about fish in Chicago. It’s mostly land-​locked (outside of that whole Great Lake business) and being so mid-​Western, I was extremely hesitant to try raw fish out this far from the sea when a friend suggested we go out to eat one weekday night. But I’ll tell you what — the fish was so amazingly good that I’m having double or triple portions of eating my words today. It was just that spectacular.
From the fish to the exemplary service, everything was simply outstanding. Definitely an evening to remember. We were some of the first guests to come in some evening a few weeks back, and as soon as we walked in we were greeted with «hellos», «welcomes», and smiling faces from everyone from the maître’d to the wait staff to even the sushi chefs behind the sushi bar. We really felt as if we were proverbial guests of honor that night. The staff was attentive, welcoming, well-​timed with visiting the table and checking in over the course of the meal and in my mind was perfect in every way. I’d point out any flaws if I could, but there just aren’t any to be had.
As for the fish? Oh my gosh — it was so soft, so tender, and so perfectly seasoned from the rice vinegar and wasabi that any soy sauce wasn’t really needed. You expect chu-​toro tuna to have really nice mouth feel (which it totally did), but usually the same can’t be said for octopus despite it typically being sliced very thin. Usually it’s a little tough if not a little bit chewy, but I have to say this octopus was anything but that. It was smooth, tender, and not rubbery at all. Everything was sliced beautifully and when you figure I got a good 7 — 8 pieces of sushi plus a spicy tuna maki roll on the side for something like $ 17? Just wow. At this level of quality and care, it’s an absolute steal.
If you live in Andersonville, or honestly within 50 miles of Andersonville, you have got to go here! It is by far some of the best sushi I’ve eaten across the country and with the level of standards they bring to every aspect of the dining experience, you just could not possibly be disappointed. ¹¹⁄₁₀ stars. Truly perfection.

BYOB — 5 stars
Parking — 4 stars
Reservations — 5 stars
Nigiri — 5 stars for freshness, 3.5 stars for cut
Rolls — 3 stars for balance of ingredients and cuts
Value — 3 stars
I tried to be objective with my assessment and above rating. Fish is top notch. If I went back here, I would only order Nigiri and Sashimi since the rolls didn’t quite come together.

My friend surprised me for my birthday by taking me to dinner at Ora. This place is cozy and extremely small. It definitely gets busy fast, so think ahead and make reservations (which my friend did).
I wished I had received the same service everyone else raved about. Our waitress was friendly but not quite attentive. We sat there for over 15 – 20 minutes without anyone coming by to take our order. Even after she took our order, she missed a nigiri and one of our rolls. When we asked about our missing sushi, she just told us that it was coming. Clearly, she forgot to put the order in.
For food, we decided to order one kitchen item and a couple of nigiri and rolls:
— Oyster Motoyaki: baked oysters topped off with chives, Japanese egg sauce, radish, flying fish roe, and a spicy garlic citrus soy sauce. The order comes with two decent size oysters. I enjoyed the creaminess of the oyster, the crunch from the chives and eggs, and the mixture of spiciness and tanginess of the sauce. Everything complimented each other well.
— Mebachi Avocado Nigiri: big fin tuna and avocado topped with garlic chips and wasabi aioli. We originally wanted to try the stuffed salmon, but it was all sold out. The waitress recommended us to try this nigiri instead. This was a great recommendation because the garlic and wasabi gave it a nice flavor without overpowering the freshness of the fish.
— Hamachi Toro Nigiri: yellow tail belly. Out of all the nigiri I tried, I enjoyed this the most. It was fresh and extremely buttery. The yellow tail just melts in your mouth.
— Beni Toro Nigiri: seared Scottish salmon belly topped with ginger chives and citrus soy. I thought this nigiri was just ok. The flavors were good, but I was expecting another buttery fish. Searing the fish just took out that wonderful texture.
— Shiro Maguro Nigiri: seared albacore tuna topped with tataki sauce. My friend ordered this nigiri. She said it was different, but still tasty.
— Spicy Blue Crab: minced blue crab in a spicy sauce. This roll is nothing special; therefore it was under the «basic rolls.» But it was good for what it was.
— Dynamite: baked scallop, shrimp mix, asparagus, spicy tuna, fish cake, and cream cheese topped with tempura bits, wasabi aioli, and sweet soy reduction. I was a bit iffy about this roll because I don’t tend to enjoy rolls with cream cheese in it. Most places always put a huge glob which overwhelms the whole roll. But to my surprise, it was delicious. All the different ingredients complimented each other well.
— Crowned Ahi: yellow fin tuna, poke sauce, wakame crowned, asparagus, cucumber, and avocado. This description sounded too good to pass up. This roll definitely had the best presentation but it wasn’t only good for its looks, it was also pretty tasty.
Overall, this place offers fresh and delicious sushi. Everything from the presentation to the actual taste was spot on. The only thing I wasn’t too keen on was the service. Our waitress even took a while to get our check when we were ready to leave. So, if you don’t mind semi-​bad service, then the food here is awesome. The prices are a tad bit on the expensive side, but it is totally worth.