Kinado Sushi & Bar

Led by chef Tam Huynh, who began his career at the ahead-of-the-curve sushi bar Royal Tokyo in the 1980s, Kinado's chefs roll ribbons of fish and vegetables into sheaths of seaweed and soy paper behind a glass-topped sushi bar. The resulting rolls "are both visually arresting and gastronomically tasty," D Magazine's SideDish reported soon after the restaurant's fall 2011 opening. Across the room, diners lean into tall-backed leather chairs as waiters ferry tempura-battered vegetables and noodles tossed with beef and seafood to window booths designed to make land-locked seagulls jealous. A bar bordered with glassy, black stone stocks wine, sake, and a coterie of specialty cocktails, such as the Salty Hound, an elixir of citrus and Saint Germain spiced with Hawaiian sea salt.