I’ve eaten a lot of amazing meals in my life. As a former food photographer and someone who talks about food a lot in their writing, I would often feel it’s best to be neutral when asked about the best meal I’ve ever had. Usually, I would list a few spots based on service, experience, food, etc. That neutrality went out the window when I had a meal at the Sushi by Scratch Restaurants pop-up inside Resorts World Las Vegas during the World’s 50 Best Restaurants event this summer. I was invited in to experience the dinner with no strings attached, and literally halfway into dinner, I knew I wanted to talk about this meal and the chef to anyone who would listen (or read). Chef Phillip Frankland Lee and Chef Margarita Kallas-Lee recently announced the opening of a New York City location set to debut September 6!
An Unforgettable Dining Experience with Sushi by Scratch Restaurants
I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I’ve never actually had an omakase experience before, and the 17-course dinner is technically “omakase-inspired.” The courses are all part of an elaborate and perfectly balanced tasting menu, but it takes a certain level of trust to make it through all 17 courses. For one, I don’t like eel. I don’t like uni. I don’t like being told what to eat. On the other hand, by the end of the dinner, I was perfectly ready to eat just about anything Chef Phillip Frankland Lee put in front of me (and, by extension, his wife Margarita Kallas-Lee, who is responsible for one of the most decadent desserts I’ve ever had).
“Sushi sometimes can be very daunting and almost require an experienced sushi palate in order for it to be enjoyed,” Lee told us. “I wanted to have a restaurant that was just as delicious for expert-level connoisseurs as anyone else. I wanted a place where everybody can undeniably say, Damn, that was good! There’s a place for a restaurant where you’re going to eat something that you can’t pronounce, that you’ve never heard of, and is only sold to this one restaurant by, you know, elves who dig it up in a foreign land. That’s cool. But also, there’s something about just serving you salmon that you’ve had a million times but in the best form you’ve ever had it. I almost find that personally more impressive to serve you something that you can go to the supermarket and buy but you never, in your wildest dreams, could recreate.”
Our meal began with a pre-dinner cocktail (mocktail in my case) along with canapes that were delicious and hinted at the dinner that was to follow. The pop-up was hosted inside of Red Tail, an elevated bar concept inside of Resorts World Las Vegas with a set of upscale karaoke rooms that served as the pre-dinner gathering spot as well as the sushi bar for the dinner experience. “All of our restaurants are ten seats, and they are typically hidden in the back of something else,” Lee explained when we asked about the space transformation. “So in our original restaurant, you have to walk through Scratch Bar; in Miami, you have to walk through Ariete to get there. We are typically a 300-square-foot restaurant, you know, so that was not daunting for us.”
We ended up with a little extra space since there were only eight people in the room. Above the bar was a large board featuring 16 different proteins, including the two I was least comfortable with—unagi and uni. They were at the end of the 16 items, and I figured worst case, I could hide it in a napkin (I did not end up doing that and, given there were only eight of us, it would have been impossible to do anyway). The items at the top of the board were much less intimidating—hamachi, toro, kanpachi, and scallops. “Rarely do I have someone go; I’m a little afraid of hamachi or toro. So I give those two in the front,” Chef told us of the menu set-up and order. “When people come in, I say, any dietary allergies, and I get people who say eel, uni, I go, look, I will not make you eat it. Can I ask you again in about ten courses and see if I’ve won your trust? And nine and a half times out of 10, the answer is, fuck it. I’ll try it. They had things they thought they might not like, but they weren’t maybe scared of, and they liked it. So they say, okay, I’ll try it your way.”
While the items looked familiar, the flavors were definitely new territory in the best way possible. “The very first course, hamachi with corn pudding in sourdough, is to tell you that we’re not in Kansas anymore,” Chef explained. “When we opened this restaurant eight years ago, there was no other restaurant around that I was aware of that was garnishing and doing things stylistically that we’re doing. LA has very strong sushi. Heritage sushi in LA was primarily, you know, with yellowtail on top of rice. You get a sidecar of soy sauce, and then you mix your wasabi. That’s what it had been since I was a kid, and that’s what it still kind of was a decade ago. I wanted people really quickly to understand that we’re taking you through an experience of things that you’ve had, but in ways you’ve never had before. And so that’s why I start with that dish. But as we go on, we take different turns, and we end up at, you know, some roasted courses, some warm courses, you know. But then once we finish with the seafood, even the hot seafood, we go to like, you know, the roasted ribeye, the room temperature bone marrow, and then, of course, into the eel fried bone marrow fat, which to me, is sort of the piece de resistance, right? And then I personally, and many sushi fishing autos, swear by ending with uni. Uni is the last bite, the last flavor you want in your mouth when you have a sushi experience. So it’s kind of like the dessert of the sushi portion of the evening. Which is why? Because you might say, well, and you go up in this crescendo, and you finish uni, what’s up with that? Uni is always my last bite. So that’s how we end up there.” By the 14th course, I was pretty confident anything Chef gave us was going to be delicious. And yes, I ate the unagi and the uni… And if they were cooked by Chef, I would gladly eat them again.
“Sushi sometimes can be very daunting and almost require an experienced sushi palate in order for it to be enjoyed. I wanted to have a restaurant that was just as delicious for expert-level connoisseurs as anyone else,” Chef told us. “I wanted a place where everybody can undeniably say, Damn, that was good! There’s a place for a restaurant where you’re going to eat something that you can’t pronounce, that you’ve never heard of, and is only sold to this one restaurant by, you know, elves who dig it up in a foreign land. That’s cool. But also, there’s something about just serving you salmon that you’ve had a million times but in the best form you’ve ever had it. I almost find that personally more impressive to serve you something that you can go to the supermarket and buy but you never, in your wildest dreams, could recreate. I wanted a menu that peppers in some things like sea urchin and eel that you haven’t had before, but are surrounded by things that you have had, and surrounded by them in ways perhaps you haven’t had them.”
