Royal Sushi & Izakaya

Royal Sushi & Izakaya sits on South 2nd Street in Queen Village and runs as two restaurants in one building: a lively izakaya at the front serving skewers, rice dishes and sake, and behind it a twelve-seat counter where chef-owner Jesse Ito serves one of the most sought-after omakase menus in the country. Ito is himself sober, and the non-alcoholic offer reflects someone who orders from it.

The house builds are restrained in a way that suits the food. The Yuzu Spritz uses yuzu — the intensely aromatic Japanese citrus, more floral and less sweet than lemon — with lime, plum bitters and soda. Plum bitters are the detail worth noting: umeboshi and ume plum carry a salty-sour depth that reads as savoury, and a few dashes give a soda-based drink the bitter complexity it would otherwise lack entirely. The Ginger Mint Smash is the more refreshing of the two, mint and ginger syrup with lime.

The bottled list is where this becomes genuinely useful for a meal. Athletic's Upside Dawn covers the beer drinker. Leitz Eins Zwei Zero is a de-alcoholised sparkling Riesling from a serious Rheingau producer, and it is the important one — sushi is conventionally paired with sake, dry sparkling wine or beer, all of which do the same job of cutting through fat and resetting the palate between pieces. A dry sparkling Riesling with the alcohol removed does that job properly, where green tea does not. Kimino's sodas, made with Japanese yuzu and ume, run alongside.

That is the argument for this entry. At a sushi counter the pairing is part of the meal rather than an accompaniment to it, and the default offer to a non-drinker — tea, or water — quietly removes them from half the experience. A restaurant that stocks a real alternative, run by a chef who does not drink, is one of the few places in Philadelphia where an omakase without alcohol is not a diminished version of the same dinner.

Closed Sunday and Monday; five in the evening until ten midweek and eleven on Friday and Saturday.