Review: Sora Omakase in Stony Brook

Good sushi restaurants are plentiful on Long Island, great ones are rare and revelatory. Last year, Sora Omakase opened in Stony Brook and promptly blew all the Suffolk County competition away.

This is not the kind of sushi bar where you breeze in, have a couple of rolls and skedaddle. Sora is the very definition of appointment dining: There are two seatings every evening from Wednesday through Sunday, and the menu ($125 or $145 depending on the night) is set by the chef according to the season, the market and his whim. "Omakase" loosely translates to "trust the chef" and you’d be wise to heed that advice when the chef is Yama Zhuang, a virtuoso whose prior gigs include Mido Omakase, Bond Street and Sushi Zo in New York City.

The compact space is modest but luxurious — wood glows, steel gleams and each morsel of food comes on an exquisite plate. All 12 seats are at an L-shaped counter, and part of the fun is watching the chef and his assistant skillfully slice, sear, broil, plate and garnish the 14-odd courses. Pay attention and you'll realize that you are experiencing the Platonic forms of items whose usual renditions are mere shadows: real wasabi horseradish grated on a sharkskin paddle, cubes of freshly pickled ginger, nori wrappers that are pliably warm but still crisp, nigiri rice that is the same temperature as the hand that forms it.

When you are seated, you’ll be presented with a personalized keepsake menu that often starts with maguro yamaimo kake with wasabi dashi soy, a shallow bowl containing cubes of wine-colored tuna and grated Japanese yam peeking above the surface of a soy-dashi sea. And then it’s off to the races.

You might encounter an enormous (three-to-four-bite) Pacific oyster anointed with tomato salsa and sansho pepper, pearlescent shima aji (striped jack) dressed with shiso and wasabi, golden-eyed snapper topped with bits of scallions, blushing-pink skipjack tuna with its silver skin still attached.

Most of your meal will consist of fish, but there may also be burnished squares of meltingly rich A5 Wagyu beef in a truffle-citrus-tinged nest of shimeji mushrooms. Most nights, you’ll also be offered the option to purchase an additional course of imported uni. Dessert might be whipped cream-topped matcha cake or miso crème brûlée. Sora has a deep bench of sakes, plus beer and wine.

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