Izakaya Seki: A Hidden Gem for Authentic Japanese Cuisine in DC

Great small izakaya in my neighborhood. Beautiful sashimi and great fried and other items in too!

The good: food was excellent. Especially the soba, mushrooms, black cod and kalbi. The skewers were hit and miss. Great saki and great vibes. Really made me miss Tokyo! The okay: honestly I was a little nervous about the service based on recent reviews. We had a reservation (booked weeks before) and after waiting at the door for several minutes we started poking our head around until someone noticed. They almost said our reservation time was wrong before realizing it wasn't, and had to find a spot for us in the almost full house. It was fine in the end, but a little annoying as they also rushed us to finish early to meet the 90min despite them causing us to wait at the beginning. I also had made sure to review the menu before arriving so we could order quickly as I know this is a tight meal timeline. I do want to come again as this food is really good Izakaya good, but I hope the service becomes less stressful.

Favorite izakaya in DC. Tempura, karage, sashimi platter were fantastic. Sake was great. Really homy ambiance-- perfect for a cute, casual date. Service was great. Overall, definitely the place to go if you are craving great Japanese food and sake!

Very authentic Japanese food. We had an excellent dinner, our service was attentive and gave us great recommendations. I did not grab pics of the beef shortrib but was definitely the star of the show. Truly a great experience.

Our favorite place after 5 weeks in DC. The mushrooms are glorious, as is the mackeral (special). They fry the bones for you afterwards, making a sustainable and respectful snack. We also got the snap peas, salmon collar, and a bottle of champagne. The downstairs is a small place, bar seating only. Highly recommend

My friend recommended we grab an early dinner and drinks at Izakaya Seki, and I'm super glad we went. This is definitely a high end Japanese restaurant, that has an authentic menu and vast array of sake options. The sashimi omasake was amazing, as was the mushrooms with garlic and butter. Honestly, everything that was had was delicious and we sampled a lot of the option from the menu. With the seating that we had, it wasn't quite chef's table seating - but certainly felt close to it because of our proximity to the kitchen and servers. This made the service great... There were no long waits between us placing orders and the food coming out... But with no compromises on the flavour and freshness. The restaurant space cover two floors, we were seated upstairs but the downstairs space looked equally spacious with lots of natural light.

Izakaya Seki has been a place that has been on my to-go list for a while. The hodge podge of different flavors and type of dishes are pretty astounding because you have fresh fish in a carpaccio-type of dish all the way to crispy soft shell crab. I would say that the décor was lacking a bit and not quite what you would expect from a traditional Izakaya. If anything, the current décor is a bit bland or cold, and doesn't leave you feeling like you'd want to stay and drink/eat further. The restaurant itself is located in a very cute neighborhood so I'd think there is a lot of potential with the ambiance.

Small restaurant near U street that is absolutely delicious! I would definitely recommend a reservation as this place gets booked quickly. We happened to get lucky for a walk in but I wouldn't risk it without calling first! The two floor restaurant has a sushi bar and kitchen counter on the first floor so you can watch the chefs cook and the second floor has more tables. They have a menu that remains unchanged with favorites but they change up another portion of the menu based on seasonal and fresh ingredients. This definitely means that you can go here all the time and never eat the same thing twice. Food was all beautifully seasoned and definitely brought me back to my travels in Japan. They also had a long list of Japanese drinks!

I live two blocks away from Izakaya Seki and finally made it for dinner the other week and wish I had gone sooner. It's very unassuming from the outside but is cozy and comfortable inside. I went with two friends and we sat upstairs. We had a really helpful waiter who walked us through the menu, pointed out some of the additional items (the handwritten menu through the QR code) and also let us know what they just got in fresh that day. He made great recommendations. I had some sake and my friends had white wine and we worked our way through a wonderful meal. We started with the uni and the toro and both were fresh and melt-in-your-mouth delicious. I think that some of the reviews here that say the fish wasn't fresh just haven't seen fish prepared in this way before because it was high quality. We then had the infamous mushrooms, the cod (cooked perfectly), the soft shell crab and three salads (cucumber kimchi, shishito peppers and eggplants). My favorites were the cod and the shishito peppers! We ended the meal with three rice balls and they were the perfect ending to fill us up. I had the plum, which I loved -- tart, sweet, warm, savory -- and my friends had the spicy cod and the salmon roe. I'd say it's a great place to go to with one other person because the portions are small but I will definitely be back again soon!