Hamachi Sushi Lounge

Hamachi is conveniently located downstairs from my apartment so I frequent this place often. Two years ago it was known only as Cittadeli and they mainly focused on making sandwiches and crepes with their sushi bar being more of an afterthought. I had tried everything and their sushi was not good at all Under new management, they dropped Cittadeli from the main name and changed it to Hamachi and I decided to give it another try. Eri, the sushi chef, was extremely attentive but the rest of the staff seemed to be in another world. Unless you were sitting at the sushi bar, the service was horrendous and it was truly shameful because the sushi had improved but could easily be overshadowed by their poor customer service. They finally got their act together and got rid of their staff and instead hired one main server named Ito who is excellent. In my opinion, it’s been uphill ever since.
Considering the other sushi spots in the area, Hamachi has one of the best lunch deals. 10.99 for 2 rolls (from a list of 14 rolls) and a soup or salad. The rolls are decently sized and the quality of the fish, for the most part, is pretty good and fresh. They also have a decent happy hour from 4 – 8 with some drink and sushi specials.
If you’re deterred from trying it for the first time because of the not so great reviews I urge you to give it a shot. If you’ve tried it before and didn’t have a good experience, reconsider trying it one more time. I recommend sitting at the sushi bar so you can get to know Eri, he’s really nice and will take care of you.

Ok, so after going back and forth with Goupon about my previous problem, they assured me that the situation had been addressed and that the merchant would definitely honor the groupon going forward. Since I bought 2 of these, I felt compelled to give this place another shot. I’m happy to report that this time the groupon was honored without a problem. However, I’m sticking to a lot of what I said in the original review but I’m going to add that the workers at this place bust their asses to provide customers with a decent experience. Again, the sushi is as fresh as any I have had in NYC or San Fran, so they are definitely doing that part right. Unfortunately, it remains over priced by about $ 2 a roll, but that could also be because it’s in the financial district.
I’m going to speculate that the reason this place is always empty is that it suffers from 2 things; 1) an identity crisis and 2) really crappy management. If you’re going to be a sushi lounge, be it! If you’re going to be a chinese place, then by all means DO IT! If you want to have a hot latin buffet section, NO PROBLEM!!! BUT DON’T TRY AND BE ALL THINGS TO ALL PEOPLE! And that’s the biggest problem with this place, by offering so many options, they’re hardly able to do any of them beyond just average. I hate to predict things, but i’ve seen this sort of stuff before, and usually a dining establishment that can barely fill more than 3 seats around prime lunch time in the center of Brickell, is basically counting down the days until the lights shut.

Avoid at all Costs.
Went to Hamachi last night with Carla (my girlfriend). We came here since we had a Groupon. When we arrived the place was pretty much empty on a Friday night which should have been my first warning sign. We ordered soup, ginger salad, beer, saki, two rolls and a tuna tartar to start.
First of all this place prides itself in being an upscale Japanese restaurant due to their prices (total bill was $ 80), but they only had ONE type of Saki. Seriously? Just one saki? Isn’t this a Sushi joint?
When our soup arrived both were cold and we had to send it back to get reheated. It took a LONG time for our Saki to arrive (our waiter likely forgot). The music playing was a straight feed with commercials and all — I think I heard the 1 – 800 pain commercial a dozen times. Carla’s salad didn’t come with enough dressing.
When we ordered we asked for a certain order to the dishes (i.e. salad & soup first then the rolls and tuna). All the dishes arrived in totally different orders.
At the end of our underwhelming dinner, we ordered a fried ice cream. The ice cream inside was hard and grainy — as if it had been stored for a LONG time.
In the end, we were seriously underwhelmed with this restaurant and will never come back. It is a shame to think that the owners have spent so much money building out the place and paying what is likely crazy rent and not put in the effort to make the place a great experience.

So…
Here is my detailed review:
My husband and i went to Hamachi on a Tuesday night. Even though we live in the area, we had never heard of it, and thanks to Groupon, we decided to give it a try.
We ordered:
— Hamachi Carpaccio: Very fresh and delicious, although cut a bit thicker than we are used to, very good
— Tuna Tataki: very good
— Merah Putih roll: amazing–
— Seaweed Salad: good
Our overall experience was very good. Food was good and service was very pleasant and friendly. It is a great spot to grab fresh sushi and/​or a sandwich or crêpe. yes, they also have a bistro menu.
So, we were a bit confused when we noticed the back of the sushi menu was actually a bistro menu, but i guess that just provides for more dining options.
Yes, i would reccomend this place.

No need to spend your money here when there are other options in the area.
1. We were one of four tables in the place and the sushi took a long time to come.
2. The ginger had a foul taste
3. The sushi rolls were small and pricey
4. Rolls had little flavor /​pop /​zest

I placed a delivery order online through
for this restaurant at 8:45 pm. The order never came, the restaurant never even had the decency to call to let me know they would not be coming so I waited for 90 minutes before giving up. Every time I tried to call the restaurant, the phone was either busy or nobody picked up. I guess they don’t want customers. Screw them and the horse they rode in on. Never again!

Wow… rarely do I dish out a one star rating but this place sucks. Walked in on a Friday at 7:30 PM and the place was EMPTY. First bad sign. Second bad sign, the sushi chef was Latin.
We were hungry and ordered 2 specialty rolls and a hand roll right away. The chef was visibly struggling just to get a few rolls out. It took him about 10 minutes to dish out 2 rolls for another table, then another 5 or so for ours.
The rolls are tiny and all rice. I’ve had rolls this size for half the price at actual Japanese places. The pickled ginger tasted rancid and had dried out from sitting out too long.
My spicy tuna hand roll had a good tuna to rice ratio but in retrospect I am wondering if it was all tuna. They chopped it up finely tartar style and mixed it with spices. What scares me is that I pulled a long string of white fat that looked like raw bacon out of my teeth. It most definitely didn’t come off a piece of sushi grade tuna, which leads me to believe they don’t clean their knives between uses or worse, tamper with the food to cut corners.
Needless to say, we couldn’t wait to pay the check and run out of there.

The only thing that keeps this place from getting one star — was the guy playing Bob Marley music.
We went because there was a groupon and it’s walking distance from home. Hoped to grab some quick sushi before we headed out to a friend’s birthday.
The place looks sort of like… a legitimate restaurant owner was on vacation and some sushi fans come in to run a popup restaurant while he was gone. The place was totally dead.
Waitress came over and said ‚“what do you want to drink?” and I asked for the drink menu… she said there wasn’t one but asked again what I wanted to drink — I asked for a gin & tonic and only then did she mention that they only have beer and wine — very strange to not mention that.
Ordered springrolls to start and they were very clearly just frozen, thawed and fried… super bad.
We ordered the Lobster Roll and the Black Ryu… and after 20 minutes of waiting, the waitress came back and said that the Lobster Roll wasn’t part of the Groupon deal (not stated in the groupon terms & conditions) … so we changed the Lobster Roll for the Mat Roll. She came out 10 more minutes later and said that it was going to be another 20 minutes «because you switched rolls»… mind you… there were maybe 2 – 3 other tables in the restaurant. We finally got the rolls and they were decent… but my fiancé is convinced that I just dropped my expectations so low that I thought they were better than they were because he thought they were gross.
*sigh*. so much for sushi within walking distance.
But again — two stars for Bob Marley. No sushi no cry.

Freshest sushi in Miami. Enough said, oh and they deliver.

i love the food… the sushi are fresh. and the sushi man is very friendly… looking forward to coming back…