Blue Fin Sushi attracts fine-dining fans to Layton
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- The Green Giant roll has spicy tuna and cucumber inside, topped with yellowtail tuna, lime, wasabi mayo and sriracha.
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- Manager Tyler Bess and executive chef Andy Seok at Blue Fin Sushi restaurant.
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- Maguro nigiri features slices of raw bluefin tuna over rice, accented with cucumber and an edible flower.
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- The Blue Dragon roll has spicy crab, tempura shrimp and avocado inside, topped with cooked eel, tobiko (flying fish roe), spicy mayo and eel sauce.
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- The sushi bar is the focal point of the restaurant at Blue Fin Sushi.
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- A bamboo “boat” filled with a variety of nigiri and sushi rolls at Blue Fin Sushi in Layton.
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- Side view of the Blue Dragon roll, with spicy crab, tempura shrimp and avocado inside, topped with cooked eel, tobiko (flying fish roe), spicy mayo and eel sauce.
Thirty years ago, sushi in Utah was considered fairly rare and exotic. Now it’s commonly found in grocery stores and all you-can eat restaurants.
But a newcomer, Blue Fin Sushi in Layton, is reestablishing some of sushi’s fine-dining mystique, with dramatic ambiance, quality seafood and artistic presentation.
The restaurant is owned by Bart Bess in Perry and managed by his son, Tyler Bess of Tremonton. The two started out with more experience in telecommunications than in the culinary world. But Tyler is now trained as a sushi chef, and Bart is a huge sushi fan, said Tyler Bess.
“We were working with Sprint, and when they merged with T-Mobile, we thought it was a good time to look for the next thing,” Tyler Bess said. “We wanted to do something with quality fish, not-all-you-can-eat or half-off. We looked at different places in Park City and all around for the right location, and this kind of fell in our laps.”
The building, near the Layton Midtown Crossing bridge and west of the AMC Theaters, was most recently Ichiban Sushi.
“This place has great parking and is centrally located,” Bess noted. “We let it keep running as Ichiban Sushi while we did the back end of finding chefs and equipment and what we needed. Then we closed Ichiban and opened as Blue Fin in about two days.”
Blue Fin had its “soft opening” in September 2021.
The name Blue Fin comes from the bluefin tuna, which is the restaurant’s top-selling fish. “It’s known for being the best tuna,” Tyler Bess said. “It’s very expensive; hardly anybody can get their hands on it to serve it. It has the quality and exclusivity we were going for. People come here for it because they can’t get it anywhere else.”
The bluefin, the largest tuna species, is considered the king of the seas. Some grow as large as 15 feet and 2,000 pounds and live for 30 years.
According to the culinary guide Chefs-resources.com, bluefin tuna has the darkest and fattiest flesh of all tuna. The succulent, fatty belly of the giant bluefin (otoro) is a delicacy, served raw.
“A supplier brings it in fresh from places like Japan where it’s fished, and we cut it up ourselves,” Bess said.
The restaurant’s popular “Blue Fin-style” otoro is topped with grated wasabi root, tobiko (flying fish roe) and white truffle oil. Five pieces are $35. Bluefin tuna is also served as maguro nigiri, where a small ball of sushi rice on the bottom is topped with slices of the raw tuna.
Another popular item is the Cloud 9 dessert sushi roll. “Instead of rice and seaweed, we have doughnuts filled with strawberries, banana and cheesecake, shaped and rolled like sushi roll,” Bess said. “It’s topped with fresh fruit, Nutella sauce, mango sauce and whipped cream.” The price is $13 for eight pieces.
Blue Fin also offers the Omakase, or the Chef Experience, where a customized 10-15 course menu is created, upon advance reservation. “It’s about two hours, and the chef is cutting the fish right in front of you and building these custom rolls,” Bess said. “A lot of restaurants don’t have this, because they don’t have the trained chef to do it.”
Diners can also order a wooden bamboo “boat” filled with a variety of sushi rolls, sashimi and nigiri. “The chef will custom-build it to what they like,” Bess said. A small boat that feeds two to three people is $90; a large boat for five people is $250.
The dining experience begins when you walk into a stunning interior, with dramatic Medusa-looking light fixtures. It’s hard to believe that before it was Ichiban Sushi, this building had another life as an Iggy’s Sports Grill. Where Iggy’s big screen TVs were once the focal point, the sushi bar takes center stage, with a view of the chefs working their magical skills.
The seating options vary — tables, comfy booths, private dining rooms and the sushi bar.
“Most people prefer to sit in a booth,” Bess said. “But those who sit at the bar are big sushi fans, who like being engaged with the chef and seeing what’s going on.”
Executive chef Andy Seok trained in Okinawa for several years. Initially from California, he said he “fell into cooking” when his mother became ill and he dropped out of college. After his mother recuperated, he went to Okinawa to get authentic training as a sushi chef.
“I wanted to learn it from where sushi originated,” Seok said. “I feel it’s most important for training to be the right way, instead of the short cuts.”
Bess said it’s crucial for chefs to know which cuts of the fish are best for different preparations.
“Pieces which are more meaty are better on a roll,” Bess said. “But if you have otoro, you don’t want to put that in a roll or it will kill the flavor.” It would be akin to using prime beef tenderloin in a stew.
A major misconception about sushi and sashimi is that raw fish has a “fishy” taste, Bess said. “If it’s good-quality fish, it shouldn’t smell or taste fishy. If it does, it’s low-quality or it’s not as fresh. A good-quality fish should have subtle flavors, rather than just fishiness.”
If you go
BLUE FIN SUSHI
Location: 801 W. 1425 North, Layton
Contact: https://www.bluefinutah.com; 801-217-3823
Hours: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5-9 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday-Saturday. Closed Sunday.
Prices: $8 to $70