Tucked inside an unassuming, traditional-style home with a simple sliding-door entrance, The Fugu Club reveals a quietly elegant interior once you step inside. Warm natural woods, exposed beam ceilings, and soft track lighting create a calm, refined atmosphere. Inset wall niches display Japanese ceramics illuminated by pinpoint lights, while the intimate counter—seating just eight guests—evokes a sense of timeless craftsmanship and reverence for tradition.
At the helm is Chef Takashi Miyawaki, who meticulously prepares a multi-course omakase centered on fugu, complemented by thoughtfully chosen seasonal ingredients.
Fugu — A.K.A. Blowfish, or Pufferfish
Fugu is famously dangerous. Most parts of the fish contain tetrodotoxin (TTX), a potent neurotoxin that can cause paralysis and respiratory failure. The liver, ovaries or milt, intestines, and other internal organs are especially lethal. Even the skin is toxic, but less so, while the flesh is safe to eat. Because of this, only rigorously trained and licensed chefs are permitted to prepare and serve fugu in Japan—making restaurants like The Fugu Club rare and highly regulated.
Detoxification: The Nukazuke Method
Certain parts of the fish, including ovaries and milt, can be rendered safe through an extraordinary process: salting for a year, followed by fermentation in rice bran for two additional years. While the precise chemistry remains imperfectly understood, this method neutralizes the toxin and transforms these once-lethal components into savory delicacies.
The skin can be safely eaten if carefully washed to avoid cross-contamination with internal organs and boiled. Chef Takashi is known for transforming it into delicate spring roll wrappers, though this preparation did not appear on our tasting menu.
Our Fugu Club Omakase Dinner
Chef Miyawaki’s treatment of fugu invites us to look beyond its perilous nature, place our trust in his expertise and embrace it for a unique culinary journey.
Each service begins with a seasonal appetizer. Ours arrived on pickled vegetables with garlic chives, grated daikon, yuzu zest and edible blossoms. The gently poached fish is delicate, while the pickled vegetables add just enough acidity to lift the flavor without overpowering it. Garlic chives provide a subtle bite, and the daikon melts into the dish, cooling and refreshing the palate. A light drizzle of dashi brings savory depth, while bright threads of yuzu zest perfume the dish with citrus notes. Edible blossoms add a final, subtle floral touch.
Our second course is fugu sashimi with chive, salt, lime, monkfish liver and ponzu-dashi aspic. The sashimi is almost transparent, mild, clean, and subtly sweet with a lightly chewy texture. We were instructed to place a small bit of aspic or monkfish liver on top with chives and a drop of lime. Let it melt on the tongue and chew to release all the flavor.
Chef’s “Special” Dish
Savory dashi chawanmushi (Japanese egg custard) with firefly squid, salmon roe, edamame and wasabi garnish. The first spoonful is smooth and warm with the silken egg yielding instantly to clean, clear dashi. The flavor is subtle, eggy, lightly sweet, and infused with the umami of bonito and kelp. The salmon roe burst with briny flavor, releasing a flash of the sea cutting through the custard’s richness. The squid add smoke with a contrasting chew and wasabi lifts everything with fleeting heat, sharpening the flavors. Edamame brings a fresh, vegetal bite that resets the palate, while the overall dish remains harmoniously balanced.
Salted and grilled collars are all about texture. Blistered and lightly charred, it gives off a faintly smoky aroma while the skin crisps and cracks when you bite. Beneath that, the meat is rich and gelatinous. There’s sweet and savory to the meat, but a squeeze of lime cuts through it for a satisfying bite.
Grilled milt is a rich, creamy delicacy that melts in your mouth, with a mild, slightly sweet, and briny flavor. Some compare it to oysters, with a unique texture that’s more about a luxurious mouthfeel, especially with a bit of char from grilling.
Fugu ovaries are highly poisonous, but detoxified using the salting, fermenting and aging technique above. One of Chef’s signature dishes, it’s a thin-crust pizza topped with the ovaries, anchovy and Hokkaido kachokabaro artisanal cheese. This is such a familiar sight to westerners it is wolfed down without hesitation.
Tiger Fugu
Large Tiger Fugu over three pounds are broken down for this unique dish. It’s a textural pleasure, and satisfying in a way that doesn’t require bold seasoning. When grilled, the thick muscle firms up and tightens into an almost scallop-like bite, but dense. The skin is where the magic happens, blistering and becoming gelatinous and slightly crisp at the edges, with a prized collagen-rich chew. Like other parts of the fugu, the flavor is mild and lightly nutty after grilling, especially when brushed with oil. It’s served with grated daikon to cleanse the palate between bites.
Mains
Marinated in chef’s secret sauce and coated in a light batter it is deep fried to perfection. The fugu is slightly chewier than cod for example, but with a squeeze of lime and a sprinkle of seasoning salt it’s delicious. My only wish to satisfy my Southern soul was for a side of tartar sauce!
This dish, following the straightforward deep fried karaage is a study in layered elegance. The fugu is lightly steamed and paired with shiitake mushroom and a sheet of kombu. Sweet white maitake mushroom are paired with small, bitter cabbage bud for balance. Silken tofu warmed in light dashi are the final touches that allow the meat to remain the centerpiece of the dish. Garnished with a mitsuba leaf for herbal contrast this is an elegantly composed, dare I say perfectly presented dish.
Fugu Dashi Zosui is the penultimate course. It’s a delicate Japanese rice porridge traditionally served following richer, bolder dishes. Small flakes of fugu are poached in a rich collagen-laden broth and rice gives the dish a gentle, porridge-like body. Egg is lightly beaten and stirred in at the end, forming silky yellow ribbons throughout the soup. Garnished with green onions for contrast and collagen pearls – those prized translucent bubbles in the center that give the soup its silky, luxurious mouthfeel. This is Japanese comfort food.
Dessert
Japanese desserts are all about balance and restraint, not overly sweet nor heavy. Instead, this tastes closer to fresh cream than to typical western vanilla ice cream. The smooth texture, when topped with crushed pistachio, a drizzle of olive oil and finishing salt is elegant and addictive. The finish is clean and refreshing, simple, subtle, and delicious.
Parting Thoughts
What began as simple curiosity—an urge to check “fugu” off the culinary bucket list—quickly became something far more meaningful. I arrived expecting a few cautious bites of a famously feared fish, but left having experienced a meal that stretched my palate, challenged my assumptions, and far exceeded anything I had imagined. Dinner at Fugu Club was complete immersion into Japanese craftsmanship, restraint, and respect for ingredients, delivered with quiet confidence. More than full, I left enlightened—reminded how easily expectations can limit us, and how rewarding it can be to let them be completely undone.