I will preface this review by saying that this isn't the right sushi-joint for midweek takeaway. While its very good food, you lose something tangible when you transfer these beautiful, delicate creations into plastic containers, and you might start to wonder if, after all, a Greek salad smushed into the same container for a third of the price isn't also very good food. In its own way.
I love Ainoya. It will not, in fact, annoy ya - unlike Kirrakaze around the corner, with its premade sushi and frustratingly limited menu. Having assumed Kirrakaze was the only Japanese place in Kiribilli, I basically haven't been eating it for three years - a damned shame. Enter Ainoya.
It's just right, from the chilli edemame to the goma-ae, from the generous daily specials to the perfect spicy tuna rolls, and especially because of the heady draught Japanese beer. It's not fancy enough to feel stuck up but the food is genuinely artful - as only sushi can be - and the environment and staff are as warm as you always hope for in a local favourite. Its the kind place you want to go back to. And though it's not cheap enough to gorge yourself at routinely, that's what the chook shop's for, right?
Ainoya fills its own vital place in the Kiribilli Eating Curriculum and I'd bloody hate to go back to the version where it was absent. read more