Kura Sushi

If we compiled a list of Orange County dining “guilty pleasures” in the early 2020s, Kura Sushi would have been at or near the top. As serious sushi fans, we’re willing to go out of our way for excellent nigiri and rolls, including those at high-quality local omakase destinations such as Sugarfish. By contrast, Kura was a low- to mid-range sushi chain that lost its way during the pandemic, repeatedly raising its flat-rate sushi plate prices while its food and service quality dipped. Thankfully, the chain began recovering in mid-2024, and is now worth recommending again.

Kura opened its first U.S. location in 2008 in Irvine, 13 years after its founding in Osaka, Japan, where it had established itself as a “latecomer” to a brilliant system for facilitating food service: conveyor belts. Describing its concept as “safe, delicious, cheap,” Kura quickly moves sushi around its restaurants in enclosed display containers, letting guests unseal and pick up individual plates whenever they see something appealing. Touchscreens enable any item to be ordered fresh from the kitchen, but part of the fun comes from grabbing plates and assembling a meal from whatever the conveyor offers.

At its historic best, Kura served B/C-grade sushi, generally two nigiri pieces per plate, and focused on value. In addition to basic nigiri such as tuna, salmon, shrimp, egg, and squid – most offered in multiple seasoning variations – Kura offers multiple three-piece cut rolls (spider, tiger, California, spicy tuna) and fresh-from-kitchen hand rolls at the same flat price. For many years, Japanese locations maintained per-plate pricing at 100 yen – a number that jumped to 115 yen ($0.80 U.S.) in 2022, with a small number of items at higher 230-250 yen ($1.75 U.S.) price points. By contrast, Orange County Kura locations currently charge a minimum of $3.85 per dish.

Kura’s quality has recovered from its worst days, when its fish slices were too often thin, dry, and not particularly interesting. These problems were somewhat offset by the chain’s “monthly discoveries,” limited time menu items that included slices of steak (Kagoshima, Miyazaki, and Kyushu wagyu), better varieties of salmon (king and sockeye), alfonsino “kinmedai” with yuzu pepper, and seared garlic skipjack tuna, to name a few. As typified by matcha cream-topped sushi, which was honestly sort of gross, the discoveries became less innovative and interesting as time went on, reducing incentives to return.