There is a lot of buzz around San Francisco about Kaiyo Rooftop: A tropical tiki bar that has great views of the city and apparently can be difficult to get into. However, they have also opened another branch of their restaurant Kaiyo in the same building on the ground floor! It’s a Nikkei restaurant, which is the unusual combination of Japanese and Peruvian food so it relies heavily on seafood and ceviche as well as sushi dishes. To be honest, I didn’t even know such a fusion existed! We stopped in here one Sunday night, and as it turns out, on their opening weekend.
We selected a few different dishes, some hot and some cold, and we chose an excellent sake to pair with it all. We started with uni nigiri, because uni is fantastic, and this definitely didn’t disappoint. We also got a couple of tartares, one a bluefin poke tower and the second a vegetarian beetroot tartare. They were both full of flavor, and the bluefin was delicious and fresh. The beetroot was very unusual, but they were both pretty similar dishes overall, so maybe ordering both was overkill.
We followed this with beef and potato skewers and some miso butter corn. The skewers were fantastic as the beef melted in the mouth and it was served with a rich, smoky chimichurri sauce. The corn was also a winner in our book, with a real buttery flavor rich with umami from the miso. We followed this with some more sushi that we ordered, and the three nigiri we had were really high quality and delicious. There was an unusual sauce or topping to all of them, so it really put a spin on the traditional sushi you would find outside of Nikkei dining. Last of all we had the lobster roll, and while it sounded amazing on paper, the mango sauce definitely overwhelmed it a bit, and I lost a bit of the purity of the seafood.
Kaiyo was a really great find! Not only is it nearby, but the food is fresh and incredibly tasty. Combine that with some outstanding service and a pretty solid sake bottle, and I may have found a new local favorite. I’ll definitely be back to give more of the dishes a try, and perhaps I’ll even check out the rooftop, as at the end we tried a couple of cocktails on their menu, and they were surprisingly interesting and delicious.
Score: 4.5/5
Recommendation: The beef with chimichurri and nigiri sushi!
Kaiya
701 3rd St, Floor 1
San Francisco, CA 94107
