Usually, the best seat in the house at a sushi restaurant is at the sushi bar. This is not the case at Makoto Vail, the new restaurant by Japanese chef Makoto Okuwa. (Okuwa has appeared on Iron Chef and was mentored by the legendary Masaharu Morimoto.) Tucked inside the main lobby of the Grand Hyatt in Cascade Village west of Lionshead, you certainly won’t be disappointed at the sushi bar, but the best seat award goes to the airy, window-lined space beyond the dining room that overlooks a span of aspen trees and Gore Creek. 

“Where did you sit?” asks Okuwa when I speak with him by phone. When I tell him about our table for two in the glassed-in space, he’s nearly giddy. “That beautiful view, it makes me so happy,” he says. This is Okuwa’s first restaurant in a mountain town—his other restaurants occupy urban environments in Mexico City, São Paulo, Panama City, Miami, and Washington, DC. 

When the opportunity to open in Vail came about, Okuwa jumped at it, not just because he loves Colorado—he’s at the restaurant about once a month—but also because he sees parallels between the clientele who vacation in Vail and those who frequent his big-city restaurants. “It’s a great market for the brand,” he says. “[Vail is] very international and has a similar type of crowd.” Makoto Vail was a way to tap both a new destination and aesthetic. Indeed, the restaurant, which is all modern lines and blond wood, is designed to capture the outdoor harmony of nature’s beauty and rhythms.

That viewpoint bubbles over into Okuwa’s menu, which is inspired by traditional Japanese cooking combined with his own innovative reinterpretation of raw and cooked dishes, including sashimi imported from Japan and a premium selection of Wagyu steaks sourced from Hokkaido and Snake River Farms in Idaho.

An order of Umami Kanpachi brings this concept of delicious simplicity into sharp focus. The showstopper of a dish features thin slices of amberjack dabbed with yuzu marinade and topped with pinches of “umami powder,” julienned shiso leaf, and crunchy garlic chips. When asked, Okuwa breaks down the magic of the spice mix: “We make it with dried shiso, jalapeño, kombu, and bonito,” the chef explains. “There’s acidity, there’s spicy heat—it’s an umami explosion in a powder.” As for the generous application of shiso, Okuwa says the herb’s verdant, basil-citrusy notes really march forward because the leaf is cut à la minute (made to order) to preserve both its flavor and color. Taken all together, each bite of the dish sings with such zippy, satisfying balance that you’ll be tempted to order another round. 

Instead, follow that starter with the Hamachi Ponzu. A gorgeous cut-glass platter arrives arranged with slivers of Hawaiian yellowfin tuna glossed in citrusy white ponzu and a tangle of fresh cilantro. The bites are so clean and fresh they almost serve as a palate cleanser.

From there you can stay the course and order more sushi (I can’t say enough about the freshness of the fish tucked inside the rolls) or move on to more hearty items. There’s a section of the menu dedicated to carefully prepared steak and other meats, like pork and lamb. “We are very much focused on sushi, but we are also very serious about our distinguishing preparation of meat,” Okuwa says. 

When it comes to steaks, depending on the cut—say the New York Wagyu strip—in addition to maximizing tenderness and flavor, Okuwa might dry-age the well-marbled meat in koji butter to further enhance the savory and rich umami notes. 

No matter your order, the dish to end on is the soft-serve sundae. Even the lengthy menu description—vanilla and blood peach swirl, caramelized pumpkin seeds, and raspberry pecans—undersells this beautiful end note. What arrives is a dessert that will turn any occasion into a special one. Its swirly ice cream base isn’t doused in a cloyingly sweet sauce; instead, it’s dressed with a salty ribbon of miso caramel that winds around the treat like a string of lights on a Christmas tree. The balance point comes from the crunch of meringue-coated pumpkin seeds and the floral raspberry syrup–coated pecans. A spoonful of this multifaceted indulgence isn’t cloying or overdone. 

It’s well thought out and perfect—just like everything else at Makoto Vail.