Toro Sushi

Hands down best sushi I’ve had in Chicago! Affordable, no gimmicks, and just down right delicious! Quite a small spot and typically a wait so I save my sushi nights for the weekdays when it’s a bit more low key!

Incredible sushi! Very very nice people and fairly priced. I strongly recommend coming here. Great Byob spot too. What can be better the great sushi and BYOB! This is one

THE Best!!! As good as it gets, but be prepared to wait + BYOB. There are plenty of places around there too enjoy the hour (+) long wait and it’s worth it.

DELICIOUS FRESH SUSHI!
Fun, creative rolls. Excellent sashimi/​nigiri. BYOB. Mitch makes the experience fun. ONLY REASON NOT 5 STARS IS THE WAIT! Be prepared to wait up to 3 hours to sit in this little place. Good thing is there is a bar around the corner to wait and have a drink.

The food here is good, sure. But there is much more to consider than the taste of one’s food. As another reviewer mentioned, the rolls fall apart. One of our rolls was presented to us completely apart. Then there’s the menu. No one needs 5 pages of maki rolls. It takes too long to order. Or perhaps that’s their plan? To create a sense of desirability by creating a wait?
But does this justify a two? No. It is the FILTH in the open kitchen that is appalling. Crud that clearly had been there some time on the floor and the counters. The night we were there, the smell of a bleach agent was so strong (from cleaning the bathroom, I assume) that we were lucky to have tasted much at all. Unilocalers, why are you throwing 4 stars around? If the best meal of your life in the best restaurant is a 5, is this filthy, unrolled sushi joint really a 4?

The entire time I lived in Chicago, I was never able to get into Toro without a huge wait. Finally, I went back to visit and we went during lunch when it opened. I got a sashimi platter and the fish was SO FRESH and absolutely delicious. It’s pretty small in there, so it makes sense that there would be a wait. AMAZING, you have to try this place if you like sushi.

High quality and fresh fish. I’m not that into all the fancy rolls, just simple traditional sushi. This place offers both though and its all nom nom nom.

My fiancé and I recently moved to the neighborhood and admittedly we were sad to leave our favorite sushi spot near our old apartment. However upon our first visit, we quickly realized this would not only become the best sushi in our new neighborhood, but the best sushi we both ever had!
The only negative is that It seems like others agree with us as there is almost always a wait and they do not take reservations. Easy solution is to go a bit earlier, put your name in, and they will call you when your table is ready.

What a great sushi restaurant in Lincoln Park. The service was so fast. Like we were seated and eating our Miso and salad within 10 minutes on a Sunday night. The Oh My God roll and the Midway Monster were melt-​in-​your-​mouth good. The California roll was pretty standard, but everything was served within 15 minutes of getting seated. Played very well and a great place for a date. Not much seating for families or groups. Highly recommended!

My boyfriend and I was getting some mollys cupcake and we wanted to try this sushi spot. We are picky eaters in some ways but love sushi.
We ordered 4 sushi. We got the spicy tuna & tempura hand rolls which were delicious. We also got the M. J and (we forgot what the other roll was called) but it had mushroom, spicy tuna, asparagus, & spring mix served on a spring salad with ginger dressing. Very delicious.
The place is a $$ but in my opinion it’s kinda of too pricey. We orders four rolls and it wasn’t enough & the bill came out to be around $ 36. The place is delicious and i recommend people to try this place out.

A friend and I stumbled upon this place years ago during a trip to Chicago and this place has become one of my favorite sushi bars/​restaurants ever. I ordered Chirashi for the first time here and all of the sashimi tasted extremely fresh. I’ve come back multiple times over the years and the food is always great. I’m not going to recommend any rolls because I’ve tried a variety of the sushi rolls here and have never been disappointed. The restaurant is very small, so the wait can be quite long if you come around dinner time, but it’s worth it.

Sushi here was spot on delicious! The spicy tako roll was my favorite, but they were all good. The jalapeño poppers were unique and some of the tastiest I’ve ever tried. The service is friendly and very reasonably priced.

it’s in a cozy little place close to Del Seoul, it’s quite busy at night and you have to wait for an hour or two to get a seat, we got there around 5:30 on a friday and was lucky to be seated right away
i would recommend any of the mitch’s sushi, their specialty rolls are all very unique, though a bit on the fusion side
the crazy horse is pretty good too
it was a bit sad that they don’t do the flames for the volcano roll anymore tho

My wife and friends have raved about this place in Lincoln Park and I’ve always been jealous that I have never been. So I was really excited to go when I did.
However, I left underwhelmed and was wondering what all the hype was about.
In fairness, Sushi Toro is more of a 3.5 than a 3, but I rounded down partially because of the 4 star rating, and the fact I had some issues with the place. The main issue was that the rolls would fall apart. This is Sushi Making 101. You have to make the rolls tight enough so they aren’t loose and fall apart. That’s just fundamentals for a sushi chef.
I was really hung up on the roll-​making, and maybe I’m overly critical but having worked at a sushi restaurant and recognizing the art of sushi rolling, it was hard to say with a straight face that this is one of the city’s best sushi restaurants when their rolls were falling apart.
That being said, some of the rolls were tasty. The Sunny roll was the best, and the spider and caterpillar were ok.
I can’t recommend this place but I’m willing to try it again. Maybe it was just a bad night for the sushi chef, or there were new sushi chefs early in their career that night. Since so many of my friends like this place I’m sure I’ll be back.
Also, another fun random aspect of this restaurant — all the celebrity photos hanging on their wall, like the one of Ben Harper. Awesome, and hilarious.

Amazing sushi. We didn’t have to wait at all for a table of two on a Thursday evening. Owners and chefs greeted us as we entered and left. We especially liked the fried soft shell crab appetizer, the Oh My God and Yellow Submarine sushi. This will definitely be my go-​to sushi place in Chicago in the future!

If you want to eat at Toro literally any night of the week, be prepared to wait for a table. But despite the wait and the other dozen sushi joints that don’t have waits within a 2 block radius, it is definitely worth it.
Fish is always extremely fresh. And they have some of the most interesting combinations around.
My favorite roll is the SPICY TAKO, which is a combination of octopus, spicy sauce, and sunflower seeds. The sunflower seeds sound so random for a sushi roll but are actually awesome and completely make the roll. The HOLLA HOLLAPENO and KAMIKAZE are also great. The latter combines so many different kinds of fish — tuna, yellowtail, white tuna, salmon, etc — that it sounds scary but it somehow comes together deliciously !!
I also like the plain old Salmon and Tuna sashimi. They are always fresh and just melt in your mouth. Quality is on par with any of the «fancier» sushi spots around town.

If you have very traditional taste in sushi, this may not be the spot for you. If creative and fun rolls are more your style, then you’re in luck! Mitch’s special rolls are all super tasty with tons of great ingredients. The Arizona roll is my all time favorite, but I’ve never had a roll I didn’t like!
Toro is very small and doesn’t take reservations, so come early or expect a wait. It’s much easier to get a table for 2, so I don’t recommend large groups. That said, there’s tons of places nearby to get a drink while you wait and Toro will call you when your table is ready. Put your name down, grab a glass of wine at DOC Wine Bar, and then pop across the street to pick up a bottle of wine, sake, or beer to bring to Toro (it’s BYOB).
If you sit at the bar you’ll get to watch Mitch work his magic. If you’re lucky he’ll sneak you tastes, and you’ll get a fist bump/​tickle on your way out.

By far my favorite sushi in the city. With some very interesting rolls and a really authentic feel it’s worth a visit. I have been going for years and have never had a bad experience.
It’s BYOB but they’re is a store close by to pick something up. Also no cork fee which is nice. A couple must try rolls are the OMG and the kamikaze. Both are very different from rolls I’ve had anywhere else. Also it’s a very small place and none of my stars go for the ambiance as its tight inside but the sushi makes it very worth it.
They don’t take reservations but you can put your name in and they will text you when your table is ready!

I wish I could give like a 3 plus, but I can’t, and it’s not a 4, so… I had good memories of this place from visits 2 – 3 years ago. Since then, I have been to several other good sushi places, and I often found myself comparing them to Toro, or, more accurately, the memory of Toro. I finally visited again a few days ago, and I was disappointed, because Toro didn’t come near to meeting what my memory had built it up to be.
First, the ambiance is basic, generic, plain. Neither adds nor detracts, except some of the tables are very close to each other.
Second, the service was o.k. Took awhile to get seated in a two-​thirds empty restaurant. Pleasant. No check-​in after our food came.
Third, and most importantly, the food just wasn’t what it has been built up to be. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad, but it’s above average at best. The menu is predominantly rolls, about half of which are contrived/​trying to hard. A roll with blue cheese in it? I’m all for creative, but it still has to make a little bit of sense. The quality of the ingredients was solid but unspectacular. I really could not find a reason to come here instead of 10 – 15 other places.
Toro isn’t bad, but it’s nowhere near to what it’s been built up to be. Only way I can see myself going back would be if I just happened to be on that block when a hunger for sushi happened to strike me and I was just too lazy to go for something I really wanted.

I used to live across the street, so my review is not a current one. But, its still the one sushi restaurant (in a city full of them… funny in the midwest) that I always think about! The wait is often long… go to Franks or D.O.C and have a drink while waiting for a table… you won’t regret it. The atmosphere isn’t great, the service isn’t great… but the FOOD is!
Its bad for groups, so try to stick to a table for 4. I also HIGH recommend sitting at the sushi bar!

I’ve had their food twice, once for takeout for lunch and once for dinner. The takeout lunch was great! I ordered the Oh My God & Kamikaze rolls and they did not disappoint. Takeout as well, they were still fresh when I got home and I loved the Oh My God roll more than Kamikaze.
The second time I went, I got about halfway through my roll, walked into the freezer, ran to the bathroom and threw up. It was awkward and awful. The food tasted fine! I had the sashimi appetizer, the red dragon roll and the el fuego roll. Both were phenomenal! The sashimi tasted so fresh but something did not agree with me. I gave 3 stars for both experiences combined. The prices are a bit high, but we had 9 pieces of sushi per order about which was generous!
Ambiance is casual, our green tea was not good. Had no flavor. Service was great! Place fills up fast even on a Wednesday !

Not five stars because of coldness in restaurant and wait time. However, keep reading.
Supposedly the best sushi in Chicago, you better come when they open or be prepared to drink next door while you wait. It’s BYOB, and when the waiters are wearing their Sorels inside you know you will need to keep your coat on.
For starters, the salmon sashimi was thicker and smoother than I have ever seen. The O roll, spicy tako, kamikaze… Truly amazing and came out at a fast pace. Word on the street is that the sushi chef gives you extra treats when you sit at the bar. So the end note on Toro: grab your favorite saki from the liquor store across the street and wait it out, the masses agree on this one.