December 2025

I had no idea when we booked the week of our anniversary at the Mexico hotel by the same name as this restaurant that we were diving into a worldwide empire. Nobu Matsuhisha is a 76-year-old Japanese chef who has built in the past few decades a group of about 50 hotels and Japanese restaurants all over the world. His cuisine is a Japanese-Peruvian fusion that he created after moving to Peru using Japanese dishes and methods and Peruvian raw material. His business partner is Robert De Niro whom he met in Los Angeles many years ago. Nobu has also acted in a few movie bit parts. He’s obviously multitalented.

The hotel is expensive but beautiful, although its physical plant, service, and transparency of cost have a Mexican, not American or Japanese, texture.

We booked a table on our anniversary in the large mainly-outdoor Nobu restaurant and arrived as a spectacular Pacific sunset was developing. By chance we were seated 3 m away from Nobu himself who turns up here once a year and this was the week. Once settled, we were approached by one of his senior chefs, I’m not sure why but someone may have said this was our anniversary. This guy was the main chef at the Malibu restaurant I think and showed us the menu areas, traditional and original, very much a wide range of Japanese dishes but using seafood and shellfish from Pacific South America.

We explained we were here to be delighted and asked our special server to set up a representative menu for us. He raised his arms with a smile and said “no problem”. Cocktails were a lychee item for Robin and a straight-up boulevardier for me, both lovely. We also ordered a French riesling, feeling in a celebratory mood.

The first three dishes were strangely similar. All very thinly-sliced white fish with dressing, peppers and other adornments on top. Two of them were we thought too lime-acidic and we wondered if we’d made a mistake by asking for what amounted to an omakase (chef’s selection). But the next three dishes were delicious. Maybe the best was a rock shrimp tempura that had a gently balanced sweet and sour Japanese flavour and was fabulously tender and succulent inside, and somehow crisp on the outside without any batter.

Nobu’s signature dish, black cod with miso, was next. We had enjoyed something like it in Rob Feeney’s former Lumiere in Vancouver with maple syrup in addition. This was perfectly cooked and the miso was subtle not to overwhelm the great fish flavour. A beef short rib on caramelized onions was followed by a crab nigiri and some red-fish maki which we were barely able to finish.

This was a fabulously classy crepuscular outdoor show with our good fortune to be specially looked after. The sommelier substituted a German riesling which was twice the price of the French one but he reduced it when requested. Apart from the first three dishes it was hard to fault any of the food. The bill mind you was close to C$1000. Obviously we got a bit carried away letting the chef decide on dinner, caveat emptor.

Michelin has treated Nobu’s many restaurants individually and although there are a few stars scattered around this one is only mentioned. We might consider another of his alluring eateries if there is one where we happen to be travelling but I don’t think we’d choose the hotel-plus-restaurant combo as a special destination in the future. Somehow if we’re ever going to spend the price this empire charges we’d go for something a bit different next time.

For the restaurant: food 9.0 service 9.0 ambience 9.6 value 8.0 peace and quiet 8.9.