Haute Cuisine: The Addition of Sushi Restaurant Baru Further Elevates Downtown’s Dining Scene

click to enlarge

Photo: Provided by 3CDC

A lot of talent and a significant financial investment went into getting Baru up and running. There’s nothing else like it downtown and the location couldn’t be better.

This story is featured in CityBeat's Oct. 4 print edition.

Over the past several months, my appreciation for Japanese cuisine has grown exponentially thanks to a few remarkable additions to Cincinnati’s dining scene. College Hill’s Kiki and East Walnut Hill’s Café Mochiko aren’t all that new, but I admittedly was slow to make my way to try them.  

Considering how much I love seafood and vegetables, it’s a head-scratcher that I’m just getting around to appreciating how wonderful Japanese food can be. Thanks to its proximity to my Clifton home, Kiki has become my fairly regular haunt. And it’s open on Sunday.   

There probably are dozens of places in Greater Cincinnati to sample sushi, but restaurants that also offer an array of Japanese dishes are not as plentiful. That’s why I was intrigued to sample the downtown restaurant Baru, which opened a few months ago in a prime location.

Baru occupies a large, high-ceilinged corner of the same building as Mita’s — Jose Salazar’s flagship, James Beard Award nominee standout — and Maplewood Kitchen, home of perhaps the best brunch in town, as well as the splashy karaoke bar, Tokyo Kitty. Baru features a lot of visual and aural details that will stimulate your senses while you dine. In fact, I alternate between admiring the drama of the place and feeling dwarfed and a bit intimidated by the vast, almost cavernous space. My dining companions and I agree, though, that the clever design of the room’s light fixtures, which slide up and down on slender poles, is mesmerizing. 

A pre-opening press release announced that Baru would feature an “elevated sushi concept” modeled after a type of Japanese establishment called izakaya. The rough translation into English suggests a casual bar that also serves snacks, and I can see how that applies to what Baru owner Tyler Wogenstahl seems to be shooting for. There’s a clear emphasis on specialty cocktails, a deep dive into sake, and a handful of inventive, shareable small plates that invite patrons to linger. If you can make it for happy hour (Monday-Friday, 4-6 p.m.), you’ll find good discounts on cocktails, beer, wine and sake. Cocktails with unusual ingredients, such as a wasabi margarita or a Japanese whiskey highball, beckon the adventurous — but the list also features familiar libations like daiquiris and old fashioneds.

I’ve never paid a great deal of attention to sushi. Not because I dislike it, but I just don’t appreciate its nuances. So many sushi preparations are indistinguishable from the next sushi bar around the corner. And for the most part, I prefer hot food to cold dishes, except perhaps in the heat of summer. Dining at Baru, therefore, I have to defer to my companions in assessing the sushi, while my focus inevitably is on the other dishes. Luckily, the menu offers plenty of enticements in addition to the ten maki rolls and almost as many nigiri compositions. But sushi aficionados should be well served by the skill of Sammy Kim, Baru’s head sushi chef.    

Two of my companions tried some of the sushi, including one friend who made sushi most of his meal. The regular menu offers rolls with shrimp, tuna, king crab, yellowtail or escolar, often in combination. Two special sushi bar additions one evening were Waloo Fire Crunch (escolar and chili crunch) and Messi Roll (shrimp, asparagus, avocado, tuna and spicy eel sauce). One of the rolls and one of the nigiri featured wagyu beef. The roll, dubbed Land and Sea, is chock full of delicious ingredients including lobster, asparagus, beef and truffle aioli. It’s pricey, though, as is the roll they call Rodeo Drive, which has king crab and caviar among its fillings. For significantly fewer dollars, the Trifecta roll is a knockout, filled with bits of three different fish and garnished with colorful soy pearls. 

The small plates menu section tends toward items enhanced with well-balanced spicy and/or sweet-spicy ingredients. Steamed edamame pods wake up your taste buds with togarashi sauce, while the crispy Brussels sprouts feature a sweet chili coating, and serrano chili wakes up the crispy rice spicy tuna. That spicy tuna tartare with smoked soy, seared rice and the serrano was the standout among the small plates we tried. There’s also wagyu tartare and an iceberg wedge salad, along with Hamachi jalapeño, which I will put on my list to try on a subsequent visit.  

Of greater interest to me are the hot dishes at the bottom of the menu, which is where head chef Robert Grace hit my culinary sweet spot. Even something as uncomplicated as chicken fried rice hits all the right notes, the rice tender but with bits of crunch, the seasoning moderately spicy. It’s comfort food, pure and simple. Seared salmon has a sweet, umami-laden miso sauce and comes with sticky rice and greens with a peppery ginger sauce. Chilled soba noodles accompany seared scallops dressed with sweet maple soy. There’s also ishiyaki (stone-cooked) salmon, tuna or wagyu, and sides that include coconut rice and panko asparagus.

There’s not much for dessert here, but we wanted to try what they do have. Yuzu tart, with cream cheese, miso caramel and white chocolate pearls, could do with a little more sugar in the recipe, but otherwise makes a light, tasty ending to a meal. Or you can go for mochi ice cream, available in at least three flavors.

A lot of talent and a significant financial investment went into getting Baru up and running. There’s nothing else like it downtown and the location couldn’t be better. I always thought the best block of downtown was right around the Aronoff Center on Walnut Street, where you almost feel like you’re in a bigger city. With the addition of Baru, their block of Race Street could give the Aronoff area a run for its money.

Baru, 595 Race St., Downtown. Info: barusushi.com.