7 Best and Worst Dishes at Sushi Roku Santa Monica

Sushi Roku sits in the Ocean Avenue Seafood building in Santa Monica. It’s where we go when we want good sushi on the Westside without the long waits the most acclaimed spots require. We’ve been about a dozen times. The fish is consistently fresh, the omakase-adjacent ordering is worth doing, and if there’s room at the sushi counter, take it.

Getting to Sushi Roku Santa Monica

Street parking on Ocean Avenue is metered and competitive. We park instead at Santa Monica Parking Structure 4 on 2nd Street near Arizona Avenue — it’s a short walk from there to the restaurant. Service has been consistently warm and attentive across every visit.

One honest note: ask for an interior table or booth, away from the street-facing windows. Ocean Avenue traffic — buses, trucks, motorcycles — gets loud enough to interrupt conversation if you sit near the open windows.

What to Order at Sushi RokuSpicy Tuna on Crispy Rice.

The Spicy Tuna on Crispy Rice is a menu staple everywhere at this point. Sushi Roku’s version is genuinely well executed — fresh, clean, with a warming heat that doesn’t overpower the fish.

The White Lotus Roll is the dish to order here, full stop. The fish is pristine and buttery. Every element of the roll lets the seafood’s natural sweetness come through instead of covering it up. Pair it with the Spicy Tuna on Crispy Rice for a good contrast in textures.

The Yakumi Roll is solid and dependable — clean technique, fresh fish — but it didn’t leave much of an impression either way.

Our daughter had the Popcorn Shrimp Tempura Roll from the kids’ menu and loved it. It’s a good crunch, with approachable flavors for a younger palate.

What to Skip at Sushi RokuBacon Wrapped Jumbo Shrimp — not our favorite.

The Bacon Wrapped Jumbo Shrimp at Sushi Roku was a miss. Credit to our server, who told us upfront the shrimp weren’t especially “jumbo”. We ordered it anyway. The shrimp came out underwhelming, with bacon that hadn’t rendered enough. Skip it.

The Tokubetsu tries to pair black truffle pesto with a yuzu vinaigrette. The two fight each other more than they blend. The fish underneath was fresh, but it’s not a combination we’d order again.

For dessert, we tried the New York cheesecake. It arrives under a dome of spun cotton candy that the server mists tableside — a fun bit of theater the whole restaurant tends to watch. The flavor itself doesn’t really work, though: cloying cotton candy sugar against dense, tangy cheesecake.

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