Follow the giant pink squid to this new sushi joint near Wynwood

If tattoo artist Sailor Jerry had opened a sushi joint it would look like Kraken Crudo. A few blocks from Wynwood on the edge of the Design District, the small, year-old restaurant has an industrial-cozy feel with three tables, a bar with the open kitchen behind it and a counter with tall chairs. The logo is an octopus emerging from a tsunami wave tattoo-style, and one wall has a mural featuring a gigantic hot pink squid.

Owner and chef Samuel Sune Sguerzi is from Valencia, Venezuela, and grew up fishing with his father and helping prepare meals with his extended family. He attended the Culinary Art Institute in Fort Lauderdale and after graduation worked at Sokai in Doral and was sous chef at Haruko in Pembroke Pines, both Japanese-Peruvian fusion restaurants that influenced his style here.

Start With These Dishes

You can’t go wrong with nori tacos with seaweed , layered and baked until crisp. Or choose from blue crab salad, salmon, spicy tuna or seasonal veggies topped with wispy wakame, golden aji amarillo cream and slices of avocado topped with tobiko or the tuna pizza assembled on a flour tortilla baked with herb cream cheese, crispy shallots and aji amarillo sauce finished with a truffle honey drizzle.  You can also try roasted slices of octopus tentacles in fruity aji panca with micro cilantro; corn bread sandwiched with guava-yuzu jam and asago negro (braised beef) or pork stuffed gyoza.

Share These Dishes

Rolls are good for sharing. The Sailor Jerry roll features chives, crab salad, chopped steamed shrimp, avocado, wakame and kimchi marinated salmon tartare with sweet soy on top mixing spicy and delicate.  The tuna truffle is rolled up in soy paper sprinkled with sesame seeds with arugula, goat cheese, shrimp, crab salad, avocado, tuna and aji amarillo cream drizzled in truffle honey to balance the peppery greens. There’s also a ceviche roll in soy paper with rocoto chile and aji amarillo sauces and kiwi with yuzu soy sauce. There’s also a sashimi salad with salmon, tuna or hamachi slices arranged over arugula, with daikon radish, crisp nashi Japanese pear, cherry tomatoes, avocado and cucumber in yuzu miso dressing.

Save Room For Dessert

Get the yuzu-coco panacotta based on the owner’s grandmother’s traditional recipe with nods to Japan with the sour citrus juice and Miami with guava sauce and toasted coconut bits. There’s also soy caramel flan.

Kraken Crudo

Address: 3525 NE Second Ave., Miami

Contact: 305-456-2804, krakencrudo.com

Hours: Monday–Thursday noon-10 p.m., Friday noon-11 p.m., Saturday 1 p.m.-11 p.m., Sunday 2 p.m.-10 p.m.

Prices: Appetizers $7-$15, rolls $6-$15, sushi/sashimi $2-$4, salads $13-$15, desserts $6-$9

F.Y.I.: Imported beer available, delivery in a four mile range of the restaurant

This story was originally published May 2, 2018 at 10:05 PM.