Izuu

Kyoto is landlocked. Mackerel spoils fast. The two facts together produced the Saba Kaido, the mackerel road from Obama on the Sea of Japan, along which fish was salted at the port and carried overnight on foot to arrive in Kyoto in roughly the condition you would want it. Everything Kyoto does with mackerel descends from that problem.

Saba-zushi is the preserved form: a fillet cured in salt and then vinegar, laid along a bed of vinegared rice, pressed into a long bar and wrapped in a sheet of kombu. It is cut into thick rounds. It is nothing like nigiri, and if you are expecting the delicacy of an Edo-style sushi counter you will be surprised by how dense and how sour it is.

Izuu makes a point that the sushi changes over time: eaten immediately the fish and rice are soft and separate, at five to eight hours the kombu umami has moved into the rice, and by the next day the whole thing has tightened and concentrated. The shop sells all three states quite deliberately and will time a takeaway order to when you intend to eat it.

The original shop is on Yasaka Shinchi Kiyomoto-cho, a short walk east of Gion-Shijo station, behind a noren with a small counter and a few tables. It began as a supplier to the ochaya of Gion – sushi sent in to teahouses during entertainments – and the eat-in counter was added later so that people waiting for a gift order could try it.

Order a single length of saba-zushi to start. There is also boxed sushi wrapped in bamboo leaf, sawara and other fish depending on season, and hamo in summer. A bottle of beer is the correct accompaniment and nobody will mind.

The 22:00 closing is genuinely useful. Most of Kyoto’s traditional food is a lunchtime proposition and the good kaiseki houses seat their last dinner at eight; Izuu will feed you at half past nine after a long day on the hillside. Note that the kitchen stops about thirty minutes before the door does.

There are counters in the Daimaru Kyoto basement and in JR Kyoto Isetan at the station, both open 10:00 to 20:00 and closed irregularly with their department stores. The Daimaru branch has a small eat-in area with a break between 14:00 and 15:00. These are convenient but the Gion shop is the one to go to.

For takeaway, orders placed in advance can be collected from 8:00 at the side entrance of the main shop, which is an unusually civilised arrangement if you are taking the shinkansen and want lunch that is not a station bento. Tell them when you plan to eat it and they will make it accordingly.

On price: we checked Izuu’s own site and it publishes none. That is common among Kyoto’s older houses and it is not a trap – it reflects a trade where the price depends on the fish. The honest advice is to ask before you order rather than to quote a number we cannot source. See also kaiseki for the same convention at the top end.