Words by Andrea Gemmet
Robin Menlo Park doesn’t exactly broadcast its presence. Between the subtle signage and the wall of potted bamboo shielding the entrance on busy El Camino Real, it’s easy to walk right past the new Peninsula outpost of San Francisco’s highly regarded modern Japanese restaurant. “I don’t know if it’s the smartest marketing choice, but … I personally love things that are hidden in plain sight,” declares Adam Tortosa, Robin’s chef-owner. “In Japan, that’s basically every restaurant.”
Robin’s concept of taking a traditional menu-free omakase restaurant—where diners trust expert sushi chefs to create a personalized multicourse meal—and giving it a more relaxed vibe with a splash of California flavors has been embraced by Bay Area foodies. For Adam, a Baja fish taco-loving San Diego native who devoted years to mastering the art of sushi-making, it’s all about delivering a good experience.
“A lot of omakase places can be pretty intimidating,” Adam confesses, even though he says he loves them and has eaten in them countless times. “There are these unwritten, unspoken rules that you feel you have to follow. … So we’re trying to still be very serious about food, but a little more relaxed and fun and inviting.”
Step inside Robin Menlo Park and the outside world disappears. Upbeat music thrums, the lighting dims to date-night dark and the moody walls display dribbles of gold and a mural by Caroline Lizarraga. The polished blond curves of its sleek sushi bar catch the eye, as do the chefs producing a steady stream of mouth-watering bites with deft, exacting movements. The California influence means your top-notch nigiri might be dressed with a sliver of juicy summer peach, a bead of spicy apricot jam or a dab of smoky-sweet ancho chili puree.
“I’m not Japanese, I’ve never lived in Japan, but I trained under a very serious Japanese chef,” Adam says of his mentor, Katsuya Uechi. “I still want to very much respect the craft and the fish.” But, he adds, being in California means having access to its amazing farms. “There’s no reason not to heighten the flavor of the fish with local produce.”
Also heightening the meal? The presentation, on dishware by ceramic artisans Nicole Pilar and Laura DelaFuente that evokes the otherworldly beauty of sea creatures and the undulating forms of the ocean floor. Robin’s worryingly fragile water glasses, wild assortment of sake cups and even the custom chopstick rests all speak to Adam’s aesthetic sensibility. “For me, it’s very important what people touch,” he says, confessing to “a huge obsession with ceramicware.”
The obvious care that goes into all aspects of a meal at Robin appears to be resonating with Peninsula diners. “The reception has been pretty amazing,” Adam says. “Just because you move out of the city doesn’t mean you don’t still enjoy going out on a date night.” The general response? “Thank you for giving us another option!”
For Adam, the culinary journey hasn’t always been easy. At his first Japanese restaurant job, he wasn’t allowed to touch fish for a year—he had to prove his knife skills on vegetables before working his way up to the cheapest fish. “I think it was three years before I touched a tuna!” But he was willing to put in the work. “I always wanted to be a chef, since I was little, little, little,” he confides.
Adam is quick to deflect any credit for Robin’s popularity and highlight the contributions of his team. Staffing is key to any business’ success, and an omakase restaurant demands its chefs have a level of people skills and diner interaction that you don’t need in a typical kitchen. “People go back to a restaurant because they like the food, but more so because they like the way that restaurant made them 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.”
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.