The Fish House

WOWZA WOWZA WOWZA!!! THIS SUSHI IS Unparalleled ! Been to many sushi restaurants, and this place is as good as it gets. NO KIDDING! The chef will make you ANYTHING you want. I haven’t tasted fresher fish! The sauces he creates are to die for! DO NOT MISS «THE FISH HOUSE!» The service is spot on… it’s as if they know what you want and need before you know! Everyone is so friendly and likeable. Ambience is terrific! GET THERE NOW!

So incredibly delicious! Favorite new sushi restaurant in the world. Incredible service too!

Best sushi, the chef «Hilo» really cares about you. I love all his special sauces and his unique fish dishes … I feel like I am eating at my family’s own restaurant. Excellent !!! Must try

Amazing sushi in a Encino neighborhood restaurant-​what could be better?
The chef at the Fish House has true talent with sushi. He blends different tastes and textures to make the freshest possible dishes. I am shocked that this restaurant has been here for three years, and I just discovered it. We will be going back. Do not leave without trying the Shiso Spicy Gunjah!
We also enjoyed the Seared Salmon (unbelievable) Albacore Delight (excellent), a Shrimp Tempura special (so good), and La Nina (good). The Dishes came in their own special sauces — no mayo! (I hate mayonnaise.) If you’re looking for an incredible sushi dining experience — the Fish House is the place to go.

I met my son for dinner here. I’ve been to many sushi places but gotta say this place is top notch! Fish was amazing and chef Hilo makes amazing sauces for each dish. I was blown away by the freshness and creativity of this place. After eating here I’ve come to the conclusion that we have gotten used to mediocre sushi! I will be coming back here for superior sushi. Thank you Hilo. Outstanding!!!

This restaurant has excellent incredibly fresh fish. You can absolutely taste the difference. The lobster Yaki is to die for, delicious. The sushi chef is a complete wizard with some of creations.
The staff is incredibly friendly and the service is outstanding. A nice intimate atmosphere. I have ate at many sushi restaurant, this is as good as any of the top Sushi restaurant. I highly recommend this place.

First time eating at the fish house, it was amazing! Highly recommend it the chef customized my menu, I tried many things that I have never tried before like Chilean seabass the way the chef cooked it, pink snapper (opakapaka), Italian bluefin toro, baked pink scallops, and of course my favorite the French Polynesian albacore. First time trying sushi without any manufactured soy sauce and let me tell you it was the best experience ever the chef customize his own sauces for every single dish that he prepares! If you are ever around or you are a fish lover you should definitely try this place!

The best sushi experience I have had. Owner greeted us, came over and explained the plate and which country each fish was from. The sashimi melted in my mouth.

Holy Fish House… sweet, sweet mother of Mary… of Fish House. Stumbled upon this utter box of tastiness in a mall out in Encino, and I literally cannot WAIT to become a regular. The owner and chef is of Hawaiin decent, so he not only knows his fish but possesses a creativity that is unparalleled to what I have experienced at all the other fine dining sushi spots. He only obtains fish from fresh water sources (not farm raised), and from all over the world (Norway to Australia to… the limits are endless). He makes the most delectable sauces, so the flavors pack a serious punch that leave you without any desire for soy sauce or spicy mayo and elevate you to a state of utter bliss. The place is on its way to exclusivity, the menu will surely be phased out as the chef knows how to identify the palette of his clientele and DELIVER. I haven’t ordered one thing tonight, I just told him what I’m normally in to, sat back, and enjoyed the ride. The chef had a fantastic attitude, friendly and super informative; definitely a master of his craft that takes his work seriously. Do yourself a favor. Don’t judge a book by its cover (although he’s renovating, expect a lounge outside to come soon), and come experience the blissful state that is… Hiro & his Fish House.
My favorite :
Tuna with fresh wasabi, baby yellowtail with toasted caviar, Faroe island salmon with young ginger, French Polynesian albacore with signature toasted garlic, halibut with citrus mild jalapeño, opaka opaka with kiwi cilantro vinegarette
PS parking garage underneath the plaza ($ 2) and also street parking
PPS They have monk fish FOIE GRAS

Albacore delight-​10
Boston Lobster roll-​10
King crab roll-​10
Salmon-​eh, a lil fishy
Shishito peppers-​pass
Avocado salad-​10
Bad ass#3– ⁹⁄₁₀
Def want to come back and try the omakase!
very small place, 1 chef, 1 server, but they make it work!

In short: medium quality at best — over priced — small amount of food.
Enough said.
I didn’t like the taste of any sushi we ordered… and we ordered a lot (bill was almost $ 150).
Nothing was really tasty to me… a bit boring — some was fresh, some wasn’t… but regardless — it didn’t taste amazing, like I expected for those prices.
Plus — I didn’t leave full… which is a first to me… and it was because the dishes were very small.
Not tasty — Not a lot — Not cheap… NOT going there again !!
Now, I really do KNOW Sushi — I’ve been at any Sushi place in SFV…
I can compare quality, amount and price — and this one was one of the WORSE I’ve ever been to… no wonder they were totally empty.
Who wants to pay $ 150 and come out hungry ?? I mean, if the taste was amazing… perhaps… but it wasn’t !
Compared to places like Katsu-​Ya or So-​So-​Sushi — that I visit every week — their sushi here did not taste even half as good… yet, I paid more !
What gives ?!
OWNER: increase the sizes of the dishes — reduce the prices — and you shall see the difference in your success !!
And buy a damn HIGH CHAIR !!! this is the only restaurant in the valley that has no high chairs for babies… I mean, come on !!

I do not condone in writing negative Unilocal reviews because I know it can have a very negative impact and possibly ruin small businesses. But this one takes the cake.
As a die-​hard sushi lover, I’ve been to countless sushi restaurants throughout the San Fernando Valley. This one is by far the worst one I have been to in terms of quality and service. The rice that came with the sushi was LITERALLY a rice cake. You could not possibly pick out a single grain of rice because they were all mashed together as if nuclear fusion happened. *Please look at my photos*
I then politely told the chef (owner) that the rice was poorly cook and inedible. Instead of apologizing and providing me with properly cooked rice like a professional business owner, he told me word-​for-​word «that is how the rice is made, if you don’t like it you can leave»…ummmm excuse me?
I couldn’t believe what he said so I asked him again if he can do something about the rice in a controlled manner. In a passive-​aggressive tone, he told me that I don’t know anything about sushi and should appreciate how he makes sushi in his restaurant. I then responded that this kind of quality is not acceptable for such a hefty price tag that he was charging.
I don’t not know what triggered him but in a very aggressive (almost shouting) tone, he told me to keep my opinions to myself and said «you don’t know shit about sushi.» He started to swear as if I have done something wrong. And with that, I got up left the restaurant. Needless to say we were the only customers in the restaurant.
This owner is very short tempered and aggressive to the customers. There are plenty of other good sushi restaurant riddled in Ventura Blvd. Avoid The Fish House at all cost. This place doesn’t deserve business.

We decided to try The Fish House last Saturday because a friend of mine keeps posting yummy pictures of the food. Last Saturday we went and decided on Chef’s Choice. It was so incredibly delicious! I ate things I never would have tried and every dish Chef Hiro made was better than then the one before! Soooo… last Thursday, we went back and again had a great expericence! This place is a great find for fine sushi!

My boyfriend & I ate dinner here about a week ago and honestly everything that Chef Hiro created was amazing.
Excellent quality fish, amazing preparation, and very attentive waiters.
We will definitely be back! :)

It’s Saturday and we were waiting there a few minutes before they opened… they were kind enough to let us in early to have a seat and wait. We sat at a table not the bar.
I got really lectured by the chef: lectured on how they only use wild-​caught fish, lectured on how most sake is crap but he carries top quality. But it wasn’t in a way that felt like friendly sharing of info… I felt lectured. Fast forward… I opted for the small 300ml bottle of a junmai daiginjo (Kiko Masamune)… it was very good as is should be for $ 25 for a small bottle. Total lecture on fresh versus horseradish wasabi… and then we wound up with the smallest little bits on just the two pieces of toro. Seriously, I hadn’t even sat down yet and I had three lectures under my belt. (Admittedly, I may have asked questions on all three topics.) At one point he was expounding on the virtues of one particular sake and I had the audacity to look at a different bottle while he was still lecturing on the first one and he said «Are you listening to me?!»… like I was a student caught falling asleep during class. I mean, I love hearing new things about sushi, sake and wasabi and I hate when sushi chefs don’t open up at all but this was just a little wierd.
The only other people in there were a couple in their 80s that showed up about half hour after they opened and it looked like it was there first time there. Aside from us and them… no one darkened the doorway between 5:30 and 6:30… that doesn’t necessarily mean anything but, man, this place is sporting an awful lot of 5-​star reviews for a place this empty on a Saturday evening.
On to the fish… the actual sushi was pretty good. The toro was fine but nothing stellar ($ 24 for two pieces). As reported elsewhere, a lot of sauces on everything… but pretty good sauces.
The Albacore Delight was kind of a mess… unspectacular roll with some underlying fishiness that I didn’t like. The Spicy Tuna on deep-​fried rice cake… if I’d never had one before, I’d say it was kind of interesting, but I’ve had this dozens of times and this one was so-​so at best.
The Seared Salmon Sashimi with Crispy Onion. Again, it was OK but the crispy onions were not freshly made or very good, too much sauce.
I did not like the vibe in this place. Maybe because no one wants to be the only diners in a sushi bar but also small things… I asked if we could hang on to one of the menus to look at more options (and it’s kind of fun to study menus and discuss the other stuff on it, right?) and the server actually said «No, I will bring it back when you need it again. It’s better to leave more room at the table.» What? There were 3 of us sitting at a four-​top in an empty restaurant; we had enough room to play Monopoly!
Also… seems a little pricey for what we got. I guess when you start of with $ 24 toro and a $ 25 small bottle of sake, it’s easy to wind up with a larger bill so, I might be off here.
Three stars is A-​OK and this place wasn’t really OK to me… but two stars is kinda brutal… they tried.

…felt like having sushi at our favorite dentists plaza… tastes like they definitely use fresh and organic ingredients.
The Bad Ass #2 roll is good (could use a little more spice for my taste) and the avocado salad is perfect refreshing lunch dish.
My husband got the umakasi-​chefs special tasting menu. The beautiful live scallop plate and the black snapper melted in your mouth.
Besides, you can sit outside on a gorgeous CA afternoon!!!

5 star service
4 star for small and pleasant atmosphere
2 – 3 star for lunch special fish .
We did not have sushi so I can’t speak for the quality of the sushi .
The grilled fish lunch special was over cooked and did not taste fresh .
They were super friendly and attentive .
I will update when I return to try the sushi.

Most Fresh fish I’ve had in the valley!
The chef/​owner is in the middle of all the action, best choice is the chef’s special… just sit by the bar and he will put together his own specialites… just make sure to leave some room for beer and saki.

He is as much a Saucier as a sushi chef. Hiro does a great job dressing all the pieces of fish, and adds a lot of nice little touches to make your meal special (shitake mushrooms in the miso soup, caviar in the blue crab hand roll, mixes up the lunch special so you’re eating different sushi choices every day).
Hiro is from maui so the preparation is in that tradition and people who miss the islands will love it.
This is my top restaurant. I eat here more than anywhere else, and I really think you should try it out while fish house is still our little secret.

Decent. Very fresh fish at a good price point. They prep the fish in house. They are heavy handed with the oils sauces and searing so this is far from traditional serious sushi. Seaweed is the low quality pre-​packaged kind and the wasabi is fake, so I can’t give them four stars. People are friendly though, portions are American style, and service quick.