AUTHOR BIO: Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and a freelance journalist who has reviewed restaurants for more than two decades. Email him here.
I first met chef Yasu Tanaka a decade ago across a small counter at The Den, the sushi counter that would go on to earn a Michelin Star. He placed pieces of sushi in front of me one by one, each a quiet instruction in temperature, texture, and timing. Sometime that night I realized two things: Tanaka is a master, and this omakase ritual was something special.
Fast-forward to today and a Miami now dotted with omakase counters as if condo cranes started rolling rice. And now Tanaka is tackling something new at Pari Pari, the just-opened Wynwood hand roll spot, where he teams up with three Parisian friends.
Pari Pari aims for everyday handrolls with serious craft. It’s a 24-seat counter built on the basics—warm rice, crisp nori, very good fish—and a menu that keeps the barrier to entry low. There are set flights of three ($23), four, or five ($39) handrolls, plus à la carte signatures. Staff pass squeeze bottles of housemade sauces, a small flourish that turns the counter interactive without getting precious.
Expect clean classics (salmon-avocado, akami with cucumber, toro-taku) alongside higher-octane signatures: A5 wagyu aburi, spicy scallop with cucumber, toro with caviar, uni-toro, and even uni-wagyu. If you must gild the lily, caviar bumps are on offer. Starters stay bright and minimal—hamachi with ponzu and chimichurri; salmon with passion fruit, shiso, and crispy onion; tuna with negi-garlic oil and a tick of kizami wasabi—tuning your palate before the nori parade.
Yasu and Michelle Tanaka
Desserts come from Paris pastry star Yann Couvreur, who’s workshopping French-Japanese riffs like a mango–coconut–passion fruit cake and black sesame ice cream dusted with matcha, served with a Liger chocolate chip cookie. It reads like a thoughtful coda rather than a sugar crash, matching the room’s light-wood calm and precise edges.
Yann Couvreur
Pari Pari is open Wednesday–Sunday, noon to 11 p.m., with limited counter seating. Book on Resy, or roll the dice on a walk-in; expanded hours are coming. In a city crowded with sushi counters, this one has both the precision and the chef to matter.
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