Chef Kyle Itani has kept the East Bay fed with Japanese food for well over a decade — first bursting onto the scene with Hopscotch, his solo Oakland restaurant with partner Jenny Schwarz in 2012. He followed it up with Itani Ramen in 2016. The original restaurant has since closed, but Itani hasn’t slowed down. He debuted Hopscotch Chicken in 2025 in Berkeley’s Epicurious Garden, and opened both Itani Sushi and two locations of Yonsei Handroll. The Albany location of Yonsei Handrolls is the place to go for a casual hand roll experience that skips over the austere counter service of other places and goes straight to hand rolls filled with fresh fish.
Yonsei has a full bar, but the restaurant gets relatively busy, so I recommend pre-gaming (or post-gaming) at wine bar Best Friends, located at the corner of San Pablo and Solano avenues. It serves wine by the bottle or glass, wine flights, and beer in a beautiful, airy corner space. They also offer bottles to-go, in case you want to take something home.
Yonsei offers a surprising DIY hand roll kit to make your dinner at home. It serves four, and comes with everything you’d want for the meal, such as fish, rice, nori, wasabi, and ginger, plus edamame and sunomono.
The second location of the Uptown Oakland handroll spot opened in 2025 in Albany. The fresh handrolls — open parcels of seaweed, sushi rice, and raw fish — come in sets of five and range in price according to ingredients, making ordering a no-brainer; the priciest set, the Baller, includes caviar, black cod, and uni. To complete the meal, small sides like crunchy cucumber salad and duck tataki take the experience from fast-casual to fine.