{"id":369792,"date":"2025-11-10T18:57:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T18:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/369792\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T18:57:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T18:57:09","slug":"this-philly-sushi-restaurant-has-a-nightly-waitlist-of-over-1000-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/369792\/","title":{"rendered":"This Philly Sushi Restaurant Has a Nightly Waitlist of Over 1,000 People"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph n2hx75i _1knl15h1 _1knl15h0 cej01i1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/royalizakaya.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Royal Sushi &amp; Izakaya<\/a> in <a href=\"https:\/\/philly.eater.com\/maps\/best-restaurants-queen-village-philadelphia\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Queen Village<\/a> is technically two restaurants: The casual, walk-in-only front room serves up izakaya-style hits; hidden behind it, eight-time James Beard-nominated chef <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eater.com\/2017\/6\/22\/15811066\/jesse-ito-royal-sushi-izakaya-philadelphia\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jesse Ito<\/a> helms the omakase counter. The 15-course tasting menu rotates seasonally, but Ito\u2019s exemplary nigiri remains its constant.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph n2hx75i _1knl15h1 _1knl15h0 cej01i1\">While the izakaya is dark (sometimes \u201cphone flashlight on to read the menu\u201d dark) and moody, the back room \u2014 which has some izakaya seating \u2014 is brighter and quieter. The L-shaped omakase counter only seats 8, so you may walk out having made a friend or two (including chef Ito.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph n2hx75i _1knl15h1 _1knl15h0 cej01i1\">This is the hardest reservation to book in Philly, and one of the toughest in the country. I tried every night for a year and a half, at midnight exactly, to snag a spot. Set a <a href=\"https:\/\/resy.com\/cities\/philadelphia-pa\/venues\/royal-sushi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Resy<\/a> notify \u2014 it\u2019s rare, but occasionally, last-minute bookings open. If you do nab a seat, your waiter will even offer to make your next (pre-paid) reservation for you in another 3-4 months.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph n2hx75i _1knl15h1 _1knl15h0 cej01i1\">If you can\u2019t get into the omakase, by no means are you settling for the izakaya, a dining experience in itself. Sit at the bar and order a few rolls, like the Bloc Party and Aka-Taka.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Royal Sushi &amp; Izakaya in Queen Village is technically two restaurants: The casual, walk-in-only front room serves up&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":369793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,141333,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-369792","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-dining-report","10":"tag-pa","11":"tag-pennsylvania","12":"tag-philadelphia","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}