Sabi Omakase Oslo – eight seats, one flame, one Michelin Star

Sabi Omakase Oslo is an eight-seat counter on the second floor of Vikaterrassen, a quiet stretch of Vika a few minutes from Nationaltheatret station, where one chef works through roughly twenty courses with nothing between himself and his guests. Here sushi is pared back to its oldest grammar: rice warmed in a metal pot over open flame, fish and shellfish finished over binchotan charcoal, and a vinegar-and-salt-seasoned rice that the kitchen refuses to sweeten with sugar so it never masks the fish it carries. It holds one MICHELIN Star, a distinction it has now carried for three years running, placing it among the very few Japanese addresses in Norway recognised at this level. Reservations open weekly online and disappear within hours, which says plenty about how Oslo's diners now rate this particular eight-seat room.

01The room and the setting

The restaurant is built around a single counter for eight, set on the second floor of Vikaterrassen, the shopping arcade just off Ruseløkkveien and next to Nationaltheatret station. The design is modern Japanese in mood rather than museum-traditional, and behind the counter sit seasonal plant arrangements that the room changes to catch, in its own words, the beautiful imperfections of nature from every angle.

The house asks for smart casual dress, no shorts, tank tops or sandals, and requests that guests go easy on perfume so it does not compete with the aromas on the plate. Photography is allowed, flash is not, and children under twelve are not accommodated unless they can eat the full seasonal set menu.

02The chef

Airis Zapašnikas, who goes by Airis Zapa, was born in Kaunas, Lithuania, in 1992 and first apprenticed at a sushi restaurant in his hometown while still young. He later began studying towards a medical career and had set his sights on becoming a surgeon, but in his second year of study he instead took an offer to work as a sushi chef in Norway, a decision that redirected the rest of his career.

Insider tip

Book well ahead; seatings open weekly online and are gone within hours.

He trained under some of Norway's established sushi chefs, including Roger A. Joya and Vladimir Pak, and in 2017 received accreditation from Hirotoshi Ogawa, Director of the All Japan Sushi Association. He passed the Certified Sake Sommelier examination in 2022 and earned the Kuro Obi 1st Dan certificate in Tokyo in 2024. He became executive chef and general manager of Sabi Omakase Oslo in 2022, and the restaurant was awarded its MICHELIN Star within a year, confirmed in the guide from 2023. In August 2025 he added the World Sushi Cup title, won in Tokyo.

03The cooking

The kitchen works in the Edomae tradition, a roughly two-hundred-year-old Tokyo method the team set out to preserve rather than reinvent. A seating moves through otsumami, sashimi and nigiri, built mainly from Nordic ingredients at their freshest point rather than flown-in exotics.

Rice is cooked in a metal pot over open flame and seasoned only with salt and vinegar, never sugar, on the principle that there is no point making sushi if the fish tastes better left alone, or without rice at all. Certain courses are finished over binchotan charcoal, a nod to feeling and craft over purely technical plating.

04Wine and drinks

Guests who prefer to choose their own glass can draw instead from an extensive list of sake, champagne, wine, beer, whisky, cocktails, juice and tea.

05When to go and booking

Seatings run Wednesday and Thursday at 19:00, and Friday and Saturday with two sittings, at 17:00 and 20:00. The house asks guests to allow around three and a half hours for the full sequence and to arrive on time, since service for the whole counter begins together. Reservations open weekly online and are typically gone within hours of release, so this is a booking to plan well ahead of a trip to Oslo.

06The neighbourhood

Vikaterrassen sits in Vika, the business-and-shopping quarter wedged between Oslo's City Hall, the harbour front at Aker Brygge and Nationaltheatret station, putting the counter within easy walking distance of the fjord promenade, the National Theatre and the government quarter. It is a discreet, workaday setting for a room that draws some of the hardest reservations in the city.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.