Chicago's Best Sushi

The Daily Meal recently published our Best Sushi in America roundup for 2014, and in order to compile our ranking, we started by reaching out to leading culinary authorities to ask what their favorite sushi restaurants are, and we supplemented those suggestions with sushi restaurants featured in local reviews and pre-existing regional and local rankings. Although many of these restaurants also serve a menu of traditional Japanese food, we stressed that the primary focus must be on sushi. We then took that list of 112 restaurants from across the country and built a survey, with the restaurants separated by region. We invited our group of trusted panelists, comprising chefs, bloggers, journalists, and other culinary authorities, to vote for their favorites. Our final list showcased the 35 best, with three from Chicago making the cut.

Katsu is a small, homey restaurant in an unassuming West Rogers Park building serving the best sushi in Chicago, and it's so beloved by the locals that it bested Alinea to claim the #1 spot for "Best Food in Chicago" in last year's Zagat guide. Chef Katsu Imamura and his wife Haruko run the restaurant with friendly professionalism, and only the freshest fish available is served, sliced in slightly more generous portions than you'll find elsewhere and accented with a shiso leaf here, a dab of caviar there. Katsu isn't a place to see and be seen, it's a place to experience the work of a sushi master. 

Chef Imamura's sushi is so good, it snagged the #12 spot on our list, beating out local competitor Arami (#31) and Yuzu Sushi & Robata Grill (#33), to be named the top-ranking sushi in Chicago this year.

Kate Kolenda is the Restaurant and City Guide Editor at The Daily Meal. Follow her on Twitter @BeefWerky and @theconversant.