Kampai Sushi Bar

A strong 4 stars… friendly, fast service. Not a bargain… but also not at all expensive.
Crazy roll was very good. Well done seaweed salad.
Deserve an extra ¼ or ½ star… if Unilocal would allow. I will be back next time I am in town.

My hidden little sushi gem! Is it fancy? No. Is it hip? Not really. But the sushi at this quaint establishment is on point! People always flock to Subzero and Drunken Fish down the road or even Tani in Clayton… which is great, I love all those places too!!! But the best sushi in St. Louis is right here people and very reasonably priced. Go show Kampai some love… you won’t be sorry!

I have been here a couple of times before and have never been that impressed, but I thought I’d give it another try.
I ordered grilled salmon and bugolgi to take home last night. The salmon was dried out to the point of leather. The bugolgi was the absolute worst I’ve ever tasted. I would have thrown it all in the trash but the fridge and cupboards were bare.
We will never eat here again.

Super affordable and delicious lunch option for sushi near WashU! Their lunch combos in particular are great if you’re craving both rolls and nigiri — I got the Sushi B combo, which comes with a spicy tuna roll plus 6 nigiri (shrimp, crab, tuna, salmon, yellowtail, red snapper), miso soup, and salad. Everything tasted pretty fresh, especially the salmon. The miso soup was also quite flavorful. Would definitely come back to try out other rolls or chirashi!

Had a delightful experience at Kampai with a group of colleagues last night. The ambiance was warm and inviting with tables of different sizes to accommodate as few as one person to as many as a small group. It’s the kind of place you can feel comfortable by yourself, with another person or with a group of people, and the customers are very diverse. The service was excellent. Our server was friendly and attentive. Our food came out very quickly, and speaking of, the most impressive part of our experience was in fact the food. We ordered nearly everything on the menu and boy was it tasty! We had the Seaweed Salad, Edamame & Gyoza to start and an assortment of 8 different rolls — all delicious — but my favorite was the special, which happened to be the White Tiger roll. Yummmmmm!!! The White Tiger is a must! To date, Kampai CWE is the best sushi I’ve had in St. Louis, and the excellent service and ambiance makes it that much better.

Great saki selection and wonderful service. Our meal and experience for a group of 5 in the tradition Japanese seating was perfect.

I would rank Kampai Sushi above Drunken Fish and Wasabi when it comes to food (Drunken Fish still has better drinks). All three restaurants offer a similar selection of sushi rolls, but Kampai’s just taste better. There isn’t an obnoxious amount of rice, the rolls aren’t falling apart, and the fish tastes fresh. If you come with a group and order a ton of sushi, they serve your food in a boat. Yes, this doesn’t make the sushi more delicious, but it adds to the dining experience. The restaurant is pretty big and service is fast, so I have never had an issue with getting a table here.

Kampai is probably my favorite sushi place in STL. Sushi is consistently delicious, prices are reasonable, service is good, and you get complimentary miso soup and salad, both of which are super flavorful. Tip: don’t sit in the Tommy room. It’s an elevated platform where you sit around a tiny table, cross legged with your shoes off. I made the mistake of sitting there and being uncomfortable all throughout dinner during a busy night.

Came with some friends for a quick lunch. Fast and friendly service. Excellent food. Tried the lunch specials and some rolls and they were excellent! Would highly recommend it!

I would say this is definitely better than Drunken Fish… just turn the corner.

Always a wonderful experience the atmosphere is wonderful food is great and always fresh… it’s my regular choice for lunch and dinner meetings

One of my favorite places for sushi. I get the sunset roll every time. The fish is always fresh, especially the salmon. The ambience is nice, but if you look closely there are a few things in disrepair. Service is usually pretty good, and I don’t think I’ve ever had to wait for a table. Parking can be tricky, but there are some parking spaces in the garage.

Nice atmosphere, decent prices, mediocre sushi. Rolls are pretty standard. I was expecting better flavor sushi since it’s rated 4 stars, but it missed the mark. Will try again sometime to see if the review can be bumped up some.

My first experience here was disappointing, I’ll admit. I got the sunrise roll, wanting to love it, as I love mango in sushi rolls (seriously, it’s the bees knees). It didn’t taste all that great, maybe as if the rice or tempura shrimp wasn’t super fresh? It wasn’t rolled tightly enough either, and fell apart. I had ordered it for takeout, and felt kind of like they didn’t really try, knowing it wasn’t for a sit down meal.
I’ve come back a few times for takeout since then, however, and have never again been disappointed.
The quality here is about 1000 times that of sushi ai or café mochi. I have yet to try Wasabi or Nobu, so I can’t draw a comparison there. Regardless: I’m from the low country region of Georgia, where fresh fish and good sushi is abundant, and Kampai is the only place in town that stacks up to the sushi I’m used to.
The only other place in town I can truly say had sushi that rivals the quality of Kampai is (believe it or not) To-​Go Sushi in Brentwood. Their raw rolls are just as good as Kampai but Kampai has a much better, more inventive variety of rolls. To-​Go Sushi is still my go-​to (pun intended) for more standard rolls when I’m in that area, but Kampai is the real winner that I’ve tried so far. It may be a little pricier, but they really do have the best sushi in the city!

This place was wonderful. The service was perfect, the sushi was fresh and so delicious. I got the low carb roll drizzled with balsamic vinegar. Rolled in crispy-​cold cucumber, this roll is my favorite of all the rolls in town now. I also had udon noodle soup, left off the fish cake and added chicken. The broth was really flavorful. I took half of it home, so I got two meals for a great price. And… the music selection was so relaxing and enjoyable. I will go back asap.
Tip: they have 9 spots in the garage next to the restaurant. I wish I had known that before I spent 20 minutes trying to park at a meter in the construction zone mess that is currently the CWE. I didn’t have any cash for the two garages. The meters take cards, but the garages don’t. Sigh. But the meal made up for my frustration.

The sushi was tiny, and our waitress didn’t check up on us – I literally had to stand up and get my own wasabi after waiting long enough for her to check up on me. She also noticed that I had gotten up, probably though, «Oh sh*t,» then passed us off to other waiters and her bus boy for service.
The bus boy was an amazing server though. We ended up giving him the tip for takin care of us.
Other than that, the food wasn’t amazing and the service was pretty bad. I’d go over to another sushi joint in Central West End if I were you.

Location of this restaurant is tucked away on a small side street of CWE. It is within walking distance of everything cool of South Eucleid.
I have eaten a lot of sushi. This is less of because I’m a connoisseur of sushi and more because I’m overweight and feel it’s a lighter meal.
The sashimi that I had were the tuna, yellowtail, and salmon. I thought all were done as well as these cuts of fish could be done (it’s only one bite of fish). The Toro was very small bite and not what I felt was superb for the price. My favorite probably the salmon.
The rolls can probably leave a little to be desired. The california roll and vegetable rolls were very mediocre. California roll rice was a little dry and large chunk of imitation crab and avocado. The Unagi roll with avocado was again mediocre, but I think eel is the bees knees and pretty much makes everything tastes pretty good.
The one thing about this place is how expensive everything is. We ate for 2 and easily spent $ 60 and very few rolls. I never really thought the quality justified the cost.
The service was very good and I do think the ambiance is great. If I lived in that apartment above the restaurant or in the surroudning neighborhood, I would definitely take a date there and convenient walk back to my apt.

Simply say that if you are looking for authentic Japanese restaurant, this is not the place you should be at. Kampai serves Korean type Japanese good. It is very easy to tell by the way the way they handle sashimi. If you are looking to enjoy authentic Japanese food, stay away Kampai.

Went here for dinner on a mild January Sat night and arrived around 6 with rez.
Was able to get a table without a problem, which was great.
Pros:
Attentive, prompt, and friendly service.
My wife enjoyed the two different Shrimp Tempura rolls she ordered — and I did too.
Salmon sashimi tasted fresh.
Cons:
I did not think the Spicy Tuna roll was that good — not a lot of tuna in the roll and the taste of it was ok but nowhere near as good as others I have tried.
Salmon sashimi pieces were small — I ordered their «special» seven pieces for $ 14 but did not feel that that was any bargain in terms of quantity. It was good, but the pieces were small.
The eel sushi piece I had did not taste as good as I was expecting. Hard to say why.
Good meal, but fell short of my expectations and I will continue trying other Sushi restaurants in the area before going back to Kampai.

Located in the heart of the CWE, I’m surprised I’ve never stumbled upon this place before. Parking can be obnoxious, but if you know the ins and outs of the area, it’s not too terribly daunting.
Kampai looks like most sushi bars — dark, ambient lighting, simple table layouts. I will give props to their drink menu. Most sushi places don’t publicize the classic cocktails. They also offered a ridiculous number of sake variations.
The sushi prices were higher than what I have grown accustomed to living on the other side of the river, but slightly cheaper than the Drunken Fish. My salmon skin roll was flavorful, but I wasn’t crazy about the over abundance of crunch. I seemed like they fried it more than once. The «Love Roll» was, by far, my big win of the evening. I do adore seaweed, but sometimes switching it up can be enjoyable and the mango brought all the flavors together perfectly. The «Lo Carb Roll» was one of the most refreshing rolls I’ve ever tasted. At my current sushi watering hole in O’Fallon, they have a very similar roll, so I figured this one had to be good. I believe it had tuna, crab, radish all wrapped up in cucumber in place of rice and seaweed. I could eat this roll every day.
I appreciate the creativity Kampai puts into their sushi. I know they can’t make their prices competitive with southern Illinois and, unfortunately, that was their main downfall for me.

I should start off by saying that I’m not very experience with sushi or Japanese cuisine as I’d like to be but this was a good stepping point. I ate more sushi here in one sitting than I have in my entire life.
I was originally tempted order Tempura but decided to just go all out with the girlfriend and order 4 different rolls in addition to seaweed salad. First off, the seaweed salad was amazing. I’ve had this before and it is easily one of my favorite dishes. I could eat a bucket of it. It’s sweet and flavorful and it’s SEAWEED *mind blown*. As for the main dish, we went with the salmon, tuna, (one I can’t remember the name of), and the tempura roll (best of both worlds).
This was the perfect amount for 2 people to stuff their faces with. My favorite by far was the tempura but that’s because their fried shrimp is amazing. The other ones were good, too!
I cant wait to come back to Kampai and explore the menu. Also, it gets points just for being in the CWE. You can always hit up some of the areas around it for a change of scenery and still stay out for the night.

I am a little confused with the reviews. As ‘the best sushi place in CWE’, isn’t the sushi supposed to be the best?
It should be first emphasized that ‘sushi’ here refers to the traditional sushi as opposed to the rolls which in no way reflect the sushi quality and authenticity, conceding the fact that these rolls somehow resemble Makizushi.
Sushi: 2/​5, disappointment. Our assessment started from the Nigirizushi (hand-​pressed sushi). Apparently it was not well pressed. When I tried to pickup the first sushi, it fell apart. I was also stunned by the sushi preparers’ lack in fundamental knowledge such as condiments for different seafood (Amaebi is supposed to be served with grated ginger; grated ginger and sliced scallions accompany mackerel; scallop works better with sea salt and citrus, etc.) None of these happened.
Ama Ebi (⁴⁄₅): Botan shrimp took place in their amaebi sushi for its redundancy than the original Alaskan amaebi. As expected, it had less concentrated sweetness and weaker sweet aftertaste. On the plus side, the complimentary deeply fried shrimp head was crispy and the shrimp brain was a delicacy.
Hotate (²⁄₅): Scallops were lower in glycogen and thus sweetness less perceivable and also somehow losing the fresh texture. One hotate sushi was a failure because the sushi preparer broke the flat cylindrical muscle in half when it was butterflied. Poor preparation due to negligence.
Saba (⁵⁄₅): Very rich in omega-​3 oil healthy fish, my personal favorite. Their mackerel was rightly cured and still preserved aromas of the mackerel and left it with less fishy oil. Nice job!
Chirashizushi and Tekkadon ³⁄₅: Very few pieces of small cuts of Sashimi in a huge bowl. I expected to see fish cut into a block shape about 1 to 1.5 inches thick, 3.5 wide. Here it was thin-​sliced to translucent pieces. Chirashi often varies regionally but at least 2 slices of salmon and tuna are the baseline. I saw only one piece of salmon. Although tuna are usually thinner, the Tekkadon tuna here was so sheer, light and transparent like diaphanous films. The quality was not bad but they are overpriced.
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Appetizer ⁴⁄₅: We had Grilled Squid and Tempura. The tempura dipping sauce was great. The grilled squid was a bit overcooked and chewy but the sweet Teriyaky sauce with sesame was a delightful surprise.
Ambiance ⁵⁄₅: It is a very well decorated neat little place. A lovely restaurant. Quite and stress free. They even have one washitsu, a Japanese-​style room having tatami flooring and other traditional architectural features. We were glad to see otoro on the menu, superior quality tuna highly perishable, and uni.
Service ³⁄₅: We ordered two Saba Nigiri but only got one. We had the second one after we asked the hostess to double check the order. Later she forgot to include a pen in our bill.
As a medium to upper scale restaurant with the price to back it up, this establishment could train their employees to be more professional and staff more mindful of their guests. No amount of interior design or upholstery can make up for mediocre sushi.

So far, it is the best Japanese place I’ve found in St. Louis. I’m slowly trying all of the good and cost effective Asian places I can find. Maybe they’re lacking a large Japanese community, but there aren’t too many other options.
Walking in, I knew this one had promise with plenty of Asian employees and customers. Their menu had many of the appetizers and traditional dishes I crave in addition to sushi. Their takoyaki was a bit different than I’ve had anywhere else. It better featured the octopus which the dish is named for (Though I may prefer the toasted shavings of possibly scallops? Other places put on top). The nigiri sushi was excellent in flavor. Though the squid had entirely too much wasabi underneath. Perhaps Japanese customers prefer it that way, but it doesn’t go well at all with subtle squid flavor. The maki (rolls) were pretty good. Each one had a thorough description and much of the menu had pictures.
I’ll definitely be back for yakisoba, unadon, and more delicious meals! It seems great for people who like Japanese cuisine!

Awesome sushi spot! I love to try new locations however I pretty picky about what’s offered as I am an extremely healthy eater. This place was happy to accommodate my requests and even made other healthy suggestions which I was delighted to try. I am back for the second day in a row… I will be returning again tomorrow. Yes! I am just that pleased. Feed me fresh, fast, simple, friend food in a cool atmosphere and I’m good to go. No need to fix what’s not brokenI love this place it’s my new favorite of the month