Sushi Sei

Sushi Sei is an upscale Japanese restaurant located a bit outside the city center, in Óbuda. Delicate raw seafood dominate the menu, including sashimi, maki (cut sushi rolls), nigiri (mounds of rice topped with fish filet), and chirashi (fish scattered over vinegared rice in a bowl). Apart from the typical tuna, salmon, and prawn options, the selections also comprise eel, sea bass, octopus, squid, and salmon roe. The chirashi bowl is a good way to sample a cross-section of the most interesting cuts.

Although mainly a seafood restaurant, non-seafood fans can order excellently prepared tonkatsu, karaage, and yakitori. During the summer, cold soba (buckwheat) noodles dipped in a dashi, soy, and mirin-based sauce are wonderfully reviving. Due to the sheer size of the space, Sushi Sei rarely gets more than half full and can feel a little too formal, but it's one of the few elaborate sushi restaurants of Budapest and hence an essential establishment on the city's culinary landscape.