Sushi Love

On Sky Park Circle, a street near John Wayne Airport, the Koll Airport Business Center hosts two neighboring sushi restaurants – Sushi Atelier inside Smart Kitchens, Irvine’s best-known collection of ghost kitchens, and Sushi Love (sometimes styled Sushilove) inside Lynda’s African Delicacies, a restaurant that somehow has three other concepts operating inside. Though both of these places appear to have been inside Smart Kitchens at one point, such that maps and online searches for Sushi Love still might lead you to the wrong suite, they’re now separate.

And even by ghost kitchen standards, Sushi Love is especially spectral, with no social media presence, phone number, or Yelp page. You’ll only find it if you visit Lynda’s or if you visit an online delivery service such as Doordash. There’s an AI-generated sign in the window, and an AI-generated menu on the counter inside.

That menu is one side of a laminated piece of paper, and features four types of items: several basic Japanese appetizers ($5 to $19), six standard salads ($8 to $18), sushi rolls ($7 to $20), and a handful of canned or bottled drinks ($1.50 to $3.50). Unlike Sushi Atelier, there are neither nigiri on the menu nor any descriptions of the special rolls. And though you can ask the lone chef-slash-counter worker to explain what’s in a special roll once you press a doorbell button and ask for assistance, the answer may consist of just pointing at one of several pictures on the menu and expecting you to figure it out.

You can skip the mystery by finding the Doordash menu online, which actually explains each of the rolls and offers something that the chef doesn’t offer in person – a two-for-one deal on various rolls. If we’d had any idea this was available, it would have mitigated some of our meal’s costs or left us more filled, as we’d ordered a couple of eligible items in person without realizing there were two-for-one deals on them.

We tried a small collection of items to get a sense of whether it was worth diving deeper into the menu here, starting with a common spicy tuna handroll and somewhat less common spicy California handroll ($8.45 each). They were both completely fine in ingredient quality, but untraditionally garnished with sesame seeds, and a bit expensive for what they were. Both of their nori wrappers were soft from sitting too long before being served, even though we ate them at a nearby table immediately after they were handed off. Those ordering online can get two spicy California cut rolls for $9, a much better deal; given our experience, you should probably expect hand roll versions to be soggy if they’re being delivered to your address.