72 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM chef’s choice robinomakase.com {food coloring} Omakase Experience Currently, the only printed menu at Robin is for beverages, featuring a short list of refreshingly fizzy whisky highballs and an array of sake, Japanese whisky and wine. Open for dinner Wednesday through Sunday, Robin Menlo Park will start offering lunch this fall, says co-owner Michael Huffman. Instead of an on-site omakase experience, expect a handful of boxed sushi and sashimi options available for take-out or delivery. feel,” muses Adam. “Like when a great server connected with them.” Away from Robin’s sushi bar, servers working the tables act as an important intermediary for the chefs, creating a bespoke multicourse feast that caters to the tastes and dietary restrictions of each diner. “I have a lot of trust in them; it’s important to find amazing staff,” Adam says. Aside from benefits that are still rare in the dining industry, like health insurance and 401(k) plans, Robin offers staff some unusual incentives, most notably round trip tickets to Japan. It’s been a big success—with the possible exception of one cherished staffer who liked Japan so much that she moved there permanently. Adam made his first trip to Japan when he accompanied his mentor Katsuya on one of his regular visits back home to Okinawa. “It was an eye-opening experience for me,” Adam says, adding that he later realized that for one longtime sushi chef in San Francisco, free plane tickets could make a financially infeasible trip to Japan a reality. Since opening in 2017, over a dozen staffers at the San Francisco Robin have made the trip and close to a half-dozen in Menlo Park are already planning to go just as soon as they hit their first anniversary and become eligible, Adam says. For many, this will be their first visit to Japan. “They go, they have a great time, they learn something and they bring something back,” he reflects. “People who travel … share what they learn.” Adam and his team’s devotion to the craft is on full display at Robin, where each morsel showcases a thoughtful balance of flavors and textures, from the creamy stripe of Wagyu fat decorating the already unctuous bluefin tuna to the subtle zing of mint microgreens in the Hokkaido scallops with stone fruit. “For whatever reason, I was drawn to sushi,” the chef says. “It’s very precise. You’re not adding a bunch of things—just the littlest, smallest things.”
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