Hanagasa Japanese - Carmel By the Sea

This family-owned gem of a restaurant is a must-visit! The sushi here is excellent. Highly recommended!

My aunt and I came here tonight after a negative experience at another local sushi restaurant (other review posted) . We were feeling upset but right when we walked into this restaurant we were immediately greeted kindly by the owners and a local couple. It was our first time there and the locals told us everything was amazing and we couldn't go wrong. My aunt and I got the Hanagasa boat 2 and everything was delicious. I especially loved their crunchy roll and special roll. The nice local couple even bought us a bottle of sake as they were leaving. The great food, amazing service, and welcoming and friendly atmosphere completely turned our night around! I wish I lived closer so I could go back. I highly recommend!

This place was absolutely fantastic! We are sushi lovers, and we instantly fell in love with this restaurant. The beer is ice cold, and the Monterey roll is one of the best we've ever tasted. The six-hour drive from Upland to Carmel and Monterey was definitely worth it. We're actually planning to return for sushi again today! We also enjoyed the salmon and tuna sushi, which was incredibly fresh. The owner is friendly and approachable—he's a genuinely nice and humble man. If you love sushi, you definitely need to give this place a try!

During our vacation from Upland, CA, we had the pleasure of visiting this sushi spot and we absolutely loved it. The sushi was among the freshest we've ever had. The owner was incredibly friendly and down-to-earth. The sushi was so delicious that we can't wait to go back today! We made it!

Horrible service, stay away. The entire staff is extremely RUDE . We 've lived in Carmel for over 8 years and this is worst experience we have ever had at a restaurant. This place doesn 't represent what Carmel is about. The one thing that Carmel is known for the most is small Mom Pops restaurant and businesses. For the most part Mom Pops businesses are well known for excellent service, politeness, friendly, welcoming behavior but this place does not meet any of the above. The rude behavior starts from the minute you walk in and it continues until you leave. We ordered Hawaiian ahi poke appetizer and it was extremely spicy and it had only very few pieces of ahi tuna, we didn 't touch it and returned it. The madwoman yelled at us as she removed it from our table. Then we can hear her and the chef yelling some more when she brought it back to the kitchen. At this moment we thought about leaving but decided to give it a chance. Wrong decision. The rest of the food was nothing to wright home about. However the bad service and the mean mugging continued on. Finally, we had enough and asked for the check, to our surprise they had added the previously returned appetizer to our bill. When we asked to please remove it, all hell broke loose. The madwoman and the chef (owner/manager) we 're yelling and refused to remove it. After a few minutes of arguing, he finally accepted that his behavior was wrong although not happy, he finally removed it from our bill. But not before expressing his disagreement. He literally threw the recipe and pin at me to sign. Please stay away from this place. Horrible service.