Doraku Sushi Buckhead

I lOVE the interior design of this place! I came on a Thursday night at 5:30 the place wasn’t crowded and the server was so sweet and amazing! They have amazing happy hour deals and a variety of choices food wise :) I went for a date night and it was a very nice! Had the firecracker shrimp, mushroom pasta, tuna poke and tuna deluxe off their happy hour menu and they were super delicious! Smaller to medium portion but def got us full! The servers are a fun crowd! Overall experience at a buckhead restaurant is a super plus!

This place was great. Brought a date here for her first sushi experience. Restaurant was decorated extremely well and didn’t come off as the dark room vibe. We sat at the sushi bar. Asia was our server and was amazing with her recommendations along with the sushi chef, Todd. Started off with an order of the glazed edamame and spicy tuna rolls followed by a white dragon roll and an East and west roll. Mix that with the $ 2 select beers on Thursday and it was a done deal. Everything was amazing and she loved it. I’ll definitely be coming back here. Wish I had taken pics.

Everything we tried was on point. We had the tuna poke, philly roll, tuna deluxe roll, salmon carpaccio, oyster shooters, demon slayer sake, and salmon cheek.
I’ll probably pass on the salmon next time. It was very tasty but too many bones. But the tuna poke was FANTASTIC. It was so good we ordered two of them.
Hands down my new favorite sushi place.

Went here for lunch with some co-​workers. Had the sushi lunch with soup. The soup was good and the service was pretty quick. The sushi wasn’t the best I’ve had, but it was definitely better than Rusans and other cheap sushi places around

Great Happy Hour Dinner menu!!! Food was very good. Happy hour dinner menu available to close from Sun to Wed and to 8pm the rest of the days. Great bargain and gives you an opportunity to try more options. Great staff and they make feel welcome as soon as you walk in the door. My waitress Nicole was awesome. Not a typical sushi place, much more. Good sushi & small hot dishes — tapas style.

The food was good, to me the roll I had didn’t stand out from any other sushi place. The service was slow. I went on a Friday at lunch time. There were not a lot of people there and my friend got her food well before I did. The roll I ordered was a simple philly roll. I would like to go back and try a few drinks and other food options. Hopefully the service won’t be slow next time.

Simply put, one of the top 5 meals ever in my life and right now I cannot remember the other 4. Ate there 11÷29÷15. Their food towers are not to be missed. Perfect amounts for appetizers. My disappointment at not seeing halibut on menu was short lived as waiter recited off menu specials beginning with halibut. I have caught and eaten halibut in Alaska with the delay from water to grill/​pan being less than 2 hours… this meal was just as good! Staff was superb. Do not know the manager’s name but he had the focus of a laser on making things flow smoothly. Six star restaurant.

When I think of Japanese food, I always think just of Nigiri sushi, rolls or Ramen. But never realized there could be more to it than what is usually served at local Japanese restaurants. And that’s exactly what I have discovered at Doraku Buckhead and so I am so glad for it.
Doraku is at Buckhead-​Atlanta mixed use development and has izakaya style to it, only bigger. They have a huge bar, sushi bar and amazing décor. It’s easy to miss, but look for Buddha face carved on a root/​trunk of the tree. Meticulously planned décor has been so many fine details, it’s just breathtaking. A great DINNER-​DATE place, just for their décor alone.
Now about the food — they serve Sushi and fusion Japanese dishes. Often, people get put off by the word FUSION when it comes to restaurants. I know I do. But this is FUSION done right.
I have tried many dishes here but these are some of my favorites
From happy hour menu
***Grilled salmon cheek & belly is — It’s tender, fatty cut of the fish with so much favors, it just slides off your tongue like a butter. And the skin is perfectly charred as well. But you need to get your hands dirty while eating this one and believe me you will be sucking on the bones. No words can actually express how good this is until you try it. why have I not eaten this cut of Salmon before! And why is this is thing is not popular in America! At at $ 6, it’s a MUST TRY!
***Grilled Yellow tail cheek or Hamachi Kama was not as good as Salmon cheek & belly, but as good (or better) as from any other top end Japanese restaurant.($ 7)
***Mushroom Pasta — I am usually not big fan of rich pasta dishes but this was quite light with more mushrooms than the pasta itself! Different types of mushrooms amps up the flavors. Small dish with nice balance. GET IT!
*** Spicy tuna roll — this is 8 pieces of spicy tuna roll, with Tuna pieces on top as well. It was good but nothing to write home about.
Regular Menu
***Hitsumabushi — this is a traditional local dish from Nagoya region of Japan. It’s almost like a eel (Unagi) donburi served with number of condiments and some dashi. At Doraku, they serve with grated ginger, wasabi, chopped green onions, thinly sliced dried seaweed and a green tea dashi (Stock).
And there is way to eat it too, as demonstrated by our Chef. Basically you divide the eel and rice into four equal portions. Scoop first portion into your bowl and eat as is. Eat second portion with all other condiments. And on third portion, pour green tea dashi over and enjoy. And eat fourth portion in which ever way you liked the best. Clever!
I loved the BBQ eel, one of the BEST Unagi I have tasted. And I liked the green tea dashi method the best but to each its own. MUST TRY!
***Scallops & Monk fish liver — I admit that I have never seen monk fish liver served in any restaurants before but I have seen it on a animé in which a lady just goes to restaurant and enjoys different dish every episode with beer/​sake (Yes, that’s just it — no plots and nothing — what it says about me that i watch such animes, I don’t know!). I liked this as well, but partner LOVED this dish. The monk fish liver has some soft tofu (not silken but soft) texture to it. This may not be for everyone, but I will order it again.
***Omakase Nigiri — I am not going to say much than it was good and they serve 8 pieces of usual cuts like salmon, tuna, yellow tail, octopus and such.
***connoisseurs Sushi — 10 pieces of nigiri and 4 pieces of Sashimi. The chef brought this to our table and explained each fish! Most of these are premium cuts — Scallops, Soy marinated octopus, Suzuki fish (Japanese seabass), King crab, Uni and many I can’t even remember to pronounce correctly. King crab, Suzuki, scallops and Uni was my absolute favorites. Also they use expensive ‘Akari Koshihikari’ rice for nigiri. The scallop was sweet and uni was exquisite!
At $ 49, it’s one of the cheapest premium nigiri among similar restaurants. It’s worth every penny. MUST TRY, if you are in mood to splurge!
And my partner loved Uni nigiri so much that we ordered two pieces of it separately for $ 8.25.
***Drinks — they have many cocktails, imported sake and local beers as well. But favorite so far is Sorachi Ace from Brooklyn brewery. This is made from Japanese Hops and I liked how smooth the beer was.
Happy hour is between 5 pm to 8 pm, except on Monday through Wednesday it is all evening happy hour.
Few times we were served by the Chef Todd Dae Kulper himself and had a chance to interact with him. He passionately answered and explained many of our queries and I learnt that they get their fishes from premium vendors twice a week and most of the cuts including salmon cheek & belly, hamachi kama are not bought separately but part of the whole fish that is cut in-​house. And that explains why they sometimes run out of dishes in the middle of the week. I like when restaurants and Chefs obsess over quality of the food, rather than just on presentation.
5 stars

I really dropped the ball on writing this review. Went a few months back. We went for their brunch, and I’m not sure they still do that.
We were the only people in there which is always relaxing, but worries me that a place I like won’t last. I had some sort of french toast thing with fruit that was unique and really delicious. I also had a unique brunch cocktail that I was a very big fan of. My husband can best be described as a breakfast ramen that he liked a lot. I’m not sure I saw a ton on the menu that would bring me in for lunch/​dinner so I’m hoping they still do brunch if I’m ever in that area again at that time.

I love this place!
I first tried it in Miami & the location there was great as well. The menu at this location is particularly the same as the one in Miami.
(Which is a plus)
For staters, I tried their sweet & spicy edamame for an appetizer & it was filling. You get a great amount for only $ 5. My friend ordered the oysters and they were tasty as well.
As far as our sushi goes it was amazing! Fresh, not fishy & if came out in a timely manner.
I definitely will be returning again!

First, let me start out by disclosing that I never write reviews for restaurants in general; however, this experience was so horrible that I felt it was my duty to report.
My friend and I set out for a lovely sushi dinner and were charmed when we walked through the doors to a quaint atmosphere. However, we should have turn around and run in the other direction because that was the best feeling we’d have for the rest of the night.
There was only one other table occupied in the entire large restaurant… This immediately sent up a red flag but I figured it was a Monday night.
It took an easy five minutes before we were greeted and asked for our drink order. We began to scroll over the menu and saw Edamame. Who doesn’t love edamame. How do you mess that up? Honestly, I didn’t know you could — but you can. The edamame brought to our table tasted like it was dunked, dunked and dunked again in a bowl full of kosher salt and then dunked again just to make sure all the sodium was absorbed into the soy beans.
Then, and here is my only positive thought, we ordered miso soup and it was edible and enjoyable.
However, then our sushi was delivered to the table… a mere 30 minutes later. Again, only other table in the restaurant has two customers. We ordered the deluxe spicy tuna roll, the philly roll and the golden dragon roll. The philly roll was atrocious and the salmon looked like it was from last year and was almost translucent. Then the deluxe spicy tuna roll… it was the best of the rolls which is saying a lot because it was far from tasty. The kicker is — the $ 18 golden dragon roll — when it came to the table it looked like someone threw up nachos on top of our sushi roll. It was quite frankly the most foul sushi I have ever tasted.
Once again, I hate to write negative reviews. But, the food was horrible and the service was even worse. My friend declared she would never come back. And, if something big doesn’t change within that restaurant, no one else will ever return either.
Oh, by the way, the water glasses are the size of my paper bathroom cup.
Id write more but, quite frankly, my stomach hurts. I encourage management to take a look at the menu and the quality overall. It makes me sad that this experiment was so negative.

Came back to try other items on the menu and this place is still a SOLID five stars!
Hitsumabushi
Only food item I have not ordered from the happy hour menu. It was WORTH. IT. for the experience and quality of the eel. The best thing about the experience is that the chef came out to explain how to eat this. I can’t wait to try other items. The service here is great in terms of explaining items on the menu.
Yellowtail cheek
Also very tender but not as tender as the salmon belly/​cheek. Especially since there is a limited number of 5 salmon belly and cheek per day, I will definitely try and get those before they run out.
Beef tataki
Similar sauce (ponzu) sauce as the tuna tataki. without aioli. I slightly prefer the tuna tataki more. One of the waiters talked it up so much that when I ate it, I imagined steak. Beef was good but I will be back for the tuna!
Salmon carpaccio
The ginger sauce is the icing on this cake. I thoroughly enjoyed the thinly sliced tuna, too.
Mushroom pasta
This is so fresh and clean and comes with an assortment of vegetables. Going vegetarian never felt so right as this. I would get it again but follow sage advice to eat it last lest I get full before digging into other tasty items.
They validate for 2 hours (in addition to the 1 complimentary hour) in the structure. This place truly is a hidden gem!

Im really glad I came here today. I was in Buckhead and I live a few miles north on 85 and was not trying to get stuck in traffic, so I stopped in for an early dinner right around 5:30.
Price ⁵⁄₅: I am going to start with the price first because that’s a big reason my review is so high. I went during their happy hour (sun-​wed 5:00-close, thu-​sat 5:00 — 8:00). The tuna poke was $ 5, firecracker shrimp $ 6, and special tuna roll was $ 6. These prices are unheard of in Buckhead. The regular menu prices are about mid range, like $ 30 – 40 per person.
Food: I was craving tuna poke which is why I came here. The tuna was okay, not the best I’ve had. I like that they incorporated it with seaweed salad as well, but the sauce they put it in was a little too sweet. Or maybe there was too much sauce. I think if they put less sauce it would have been better. But still good and the portion was really large for being so inexpensive.
The tuna roll was my favorite, I love tuna if that’s not obvious. It was basically a spicy tuna roll with a little cucumber inside topped with more tuna and eel sauce and spicy mayo. I would take off the mayo though. The shrimp was really good as well and they gave me a huge portion, I was surprised! I could tell it was freshly battered so that was nice, and they serve the spicy mayo on the side so the tempura doesn’t get soggy.
Service: Wonderful, I was catered to perfectly without being suffocated by people asking how everything was a million times (which I hate). I was the only person there for a while but they had JUST opened and it was a Monday so I don’t think much of that. Everyone was friendly and not snobby which I appreciate for the area.
One of the cons I would say though: I ate at the sushi bar and they had a sponge sitting on top on the bar and a metal tub of some kitchen tools soaking, I thought this was a little unprofessional. But all in all I would come back, esp for the happy hour. Great deals.

Great happy hour food! And, even better, Happy hour goes till 8. We had mushroom noodles, firecracker, chicken karage. Great location, walking distance to central Buckhead attractions.

Stopped by for a business lunch meeting earlier today. The interior is nice — they set it up with a more modern interior — but the music is really loud and a bit distracting. The menu is a little on the pricier side ($$), but considering the location being in the heart of Buckhead, quite normal for dining venues in the area. They seemed to have a decent sushi collection as well as a variety of options for lunch time, along with several specials.
I ordered the Sushi Lunch, which comes with an 8-​piece spicy tuna roll, a few pieces of salmon/​tuna nigiri, and a small, assorted collection of sashimi (one piece of shrimp, mackerel, octopus). Additionally, they serve salad and miso soup prior to the main dish; the portion is actually really fitting for lunch — you’ll definitely leave feeling full. I enjoyed the flavors in the spicy tuna roll — probably one of the better ones that I’ve tasted around Atlanta, but there was nothing noteworthy about the taste or quality of the fish for the sashimi.
Overall, it was an okay experience! Decent meal, but not anything more than the ordinary.

We were hungry and wanted to try out a new sushi restaurant. We debated on Craft Izakaya or Doraku. We choose Doraku because of their happy hour prices, which are 5 – 8 PM everyday! Also, it was Sunday, so the sake was half off! A bit hesitant to try this restaurant because it is part of Steve Aoki’s chain restaurants. I am glad we did because the atmosphere, décor, and food was great!
There were many items on the menu that I was dying to try, but they were out of it. We ended up ordering just about everything off the happy hour menu and some items from the main menu. We also ordered a bottle of sake. The waiter did not shake the bottle well enough though. This ruined the entire taste of the sake.
FOODWISE: We wanted to order uni & toro, but they were out of it. These two items are a sushi lover’s dream. Depressing. The prices for their uni and toro nigiri are also reasonable. We tried the king crab nigiri instead. It was good, but nothing special like uni or toro. The ahi poke was a bit too sweet for me. The oyster shooter had way too much ponzu sauce in it. I had to pour almost all of it before shooting my oysters. The chicken karaage was huge pieces of chicken wings. It reminded me of the fish sauce Vietnamese styled chicken wings. The tuna tataki was good, but it did not stand out. One of the highlights was the Salmon Carpaccio. The ginger sauce complemented the salmon so well. Thumbs up! The beef tataki tasted like the raw meat taste. Will pass on it next time. I enjoyed the grilled salmon cheek & belly & the grilled yellow tail cheek. Amazing! The last item we ordered was the miso cod. It was delicious, cooked perfectly, but definitely had a strong fishy smell to it.
Overall, I was impressed. I will be back when I am in the area.

Very good sushi choice. Good mood and ambient music. Perfect for your date or eve night out with friends. Great happy hour specials with $ 5 items and drink specials. Sushi is good quality and dishes are presented well. Service has been on point the few times I’ve been and parking is simple as you can park in the deck and take the elevAtor right up and it’s right there. Or take a parallel spot across the street which is even simpler.

I shopped by hear one night. It was pretty impressive. We ate on a slow night so ended up chatting a bit with the head sushi chef.
We sampled quite a few plates and dishes. The yellowtail sashimi was excellent and fresh. There were a couple varieties of mackerel. All of the seafood was fresh and good.
We also tried the miso cod — Excellent. I recommend it.

One of the best sushi restaurants in Atlanta. Enjoyed the seafood ceviche, doraku and god of longevity specialty rolls along with unagi and salmon nigiri, by far the best nigiri I’ve had!
For drinks, the hot sake was smooth & for dessert, the brownie tempura was unique & delicious!

When you walk in you automatically get a good vibe looks VERY NICE is clean and a friendly environment.
So I came for lunch last Friday & the bartender was OH SO NICE and very professional She made me the best drink ever A Hot Green Tea you gotta try it it taste so healthy and delicious. oh and i heard Andre 3000 was in the building later on that night. I’m telling you this place is on the right track to becoming a very successful Sushi bar. The prices are are good too not too high but you get what you pay for and for the money its worth it.
I will be coming here more often for sure.