Leblon is located at the far end of Ipanema, closer towards Barra and is easily walking distance if you have thirty of forty minutes to spare. It’s also home to one of the most trendy eating streets in the area, and also home to Sushi Leblon, a restaurant locally well known for using unusual combination of ingredients for Japanese style cuisine.
I decided to head out that way on one of the rainy days for lunch, where they open, maybe a little bit after since this is Brazil, at noon for their lunch service. I wasn’t the only one who turned up early, with another couple there obviously waiting for them to open. By the time that I left, maybe at one, it was busy, but not particularly booking-required style (although I did go in Rio’s off-peak season)
The menu is pretty extensive, and when I wanted to order a few of the interesting combinations as well as a sushi platter, my waitress looked rather alarmed and indicated it was going to be too much. We did a lot of gesturing as their English wasn’t great, and my touristic Portugese rather limited. I settled for three sample dishes, as well as a lychee-based caipirinha seeing as I was in an Asian restaurant.
I, and the others in the restaurant, ordered one of the sushi dishes that required little fried quails eggs. I got full vantage point of the preparation area since I was sitting at the sushi counter looking at how they organised it.
Beautifully paired and definitely excessively decadent, the quail egg nigiri came topped with a bit of salt and truffle oil, and then came with a piece of butterfish nigiri. The fish match was perfect since it was rich, and creamy in the mouth, much like the perfectly cooked egg whose yolk still burst when eating it. Umami, creamy, a great combination that I must remember.
I had also ordered the ceviche which had a good selection of different seafood, flavours and was delightful.
My final sushi was based on my love for grilled eel (unagi) and was well prepared, tasty and was definitely plenty for lunch.
Sushi Leblon is definitely one of those finer sushi restaurants you’ll find in this area. You get very high quality, although you pay the equivalent of London fine sushi restaurant prices for it.
Name: Sushi Leblon
Found at: R. Dias Ferreira, 256 – Leblon Rio de Janeiro, 22431-050, Brazil
Website: http://www.sushileblon.com/