I met one of my Chicago-area dealers at the new location of his store in the far western suburbs one evening. He and his wife were showing me their new building, which is actually an old building where the foundation dates back to the late 1800's and was rebuilt after a devastating fire in the early 1900's. We decided to go out for dinner that evening and I asked them where they'd like to go. My dealer didn't hesitate - "You like sushi, right?" Oh, of course! He suggested we go to a place that has suddenly become their favorite sushi place in the area, Shakou Sushi in downtown St. Charles.
It turns out that the Shakou Sushi in St. Charles is the second of now three similar sushi restaurants in the north and west Chicago suburbs. A small group of people who lived in the far northern Chicago suburb of Libertyville - Ed Hartigan, Aleks Dupor and his wife, Chrissy, and Adam Garvanian - partnered up to open the first Shakou in 2013. Aleks Dupor and Garvanian both had extensive histories in the restaurant business and had been friends for over 20 years before going in together - along with Dupor's wife, Chrissy - and coaxing their friend Hartigan out of the investment banking business to start the first Shakou in downtown Libertyville in March of 2013.
Pictured at right - (seated) Chef Sang Choi, Chrissy Dupor and Aleks Dupor. (standing) Ed Hartigan and Adam Garvanian. Photo courtesy Quintessential Barrington.com
The group was able to convince long-time sushi chef Sang Choi to run the kitchen at Shakou Sushi. Choi previously worked at a number of upscale Chicago-area sushi places such as BluFish, Blue Ginger and Starfish. The Libertyville location for Shakou Sushi was an immediate hit and in a little over a year after opening it was named one of the Top 100 Hottest Restaurants in America by OpenTable.com.
The group opened the second Shakou Sushi in downtown St. Charles - mainly because it reminded them of downtown Libertyville - in April of 2015, while a third Shakou Sushi opened up in the up-and-coming community of Barrington on the far northwest side of Chicagoland in October of 2015.
I followed my dealer and his wife from their new store location to downtown St. Charles. Shakou Sushi is located on W. Main (Illinois Highway 64 or North Ave. from Chicago) in St. Charles. They said that parking is sometimes tough to find on the street in front of the place, so we parked in a public lot a block north of the restaurant. It turned out that we both could have found a place to park on Main St. in front of Shakou that particular evening. (see map)
The interior of Shakou Sushi in St. Charles is stunning. The lighting under both the regular bar and the sushi bar in the back had an elegant purple hue. The fixtures - lighting and furniture - were modern in their design. A beautiful chandelier hung from the center of the dining room that was separated from the bar by a short wall. There was an upstairs to the place - it was very nice, my dealer told me as they had eaten up there before. Hanging from the ceiling next to the stairs that led to the upstairs was a banner displaying the Japanese character for Shakou (which means "social life" in Japanese).
We took a seat in a high-backed leather booth along the wall. The wall had an interesting texture to it. At first glance, it looked like it was made out of metal. But upon touching it, we found it to be sort of a pre-formed dry wall wave design that was painted with a high gloss gold color. My dealer said, "Yeah, every time we come in here I look at that wall and think of how cool that would be in a home."
He was telling me a little bit about the building. He thought at one time that it used to be a liquor store, but it turns out that the building has housed a little bit of everything since it was originally built back in the 50's. "This had two levels because it's sort of built on a hill," he told me. "They had to spend a lot of money to take the higher level out and make the ground floor all on one level. But what they did in here was absolutely remarkable." I couldn't agree more. The space was very elegant, urbane and sleek, but not pretentious in the least.
Our server for the evening, Christina - a pleasant young woman - came over to greet us and take our drink order as we looked through the menu. My dealer and his wife were on a 30 day cleansing diet, so alcohol wasn't part of the diet. I've had meals with them before and they do like their adult beverages, but not that evening. I was on no sort of cleansing diet and I ordered an Asahi beer. Christina came back a moment later apologizing that they were out of Asahi. "We had a big weekend," she explained. "Our Asahi doesn't get replenished until tomorrow." I had to settle for a Kirin instead.
We went big on sushi that evening. My dealer and his wife had never had otoro before. I explained to them the different grades of fatty tuna - otoro being the highest fat content in tuna making it the most delectable of the sushi tuna cuts. It's also a quite different consistency than regular tuna. Otoro has a more of a mushy consistency and that sort of took my dealer and his wife by surprise. I don't think they cared much for the nigiri toro all that much. That was fine with me as it meant I could have more of the fatty tuna.
We also got some Scottish smoked salmon nigiri sushi. Now, I've had smoked salmon in many sushi places over the years but the stuff they served at Shakou was outstanding. It literally melted in your mouth and the overall taste was just excellent. Quite frankly, I would have easily traded the otoro - even as good as it was - for the Scottish smoked salmon.
My dealer and his wife are big on specialty rolls. They normally don't do sushi as much as they do the rolls. We ordered up three different tuna rolls - the Flaming Hamachi consisted of spicy tuna and cucumber topped with fresh yellow tail, jalapeño, tobiko (flying fish roe) and a citrus-based ponzu sauce; the Rainbow roll was spicy tuna with cucumber topped with assorted fish filets and kaiware sprouts (I joked that the assorted fish was probably what they were trying to move that evening); and the Urban Heat specialty roll had - once again - spicy tuna (see a pattern here?) with jalapeño, a spicy mayo sauce, avocado and tempura crunch all wrapped in soy bean paper, topped with a thick sweet unagi soy sauce. Now THAT was the spiciest of all the rolls! But they were all so flavorful with a lot of taste sensations going on with each bite. We couldn't finish all that we had and I let them take what we had left over home for their kids. My dealer's wife said that they had a growing boy who was at the age where he could have a big meal for dinner and then want to eat an hour later. "He'll love the sushi rolls for his dessert," she said as she boxed up the remaining pieces on the table.
I love sushi and I have to say that the nigiri sushi and specialty rolls I had at Shakou Sushi were simply outstanding. The contemporary design in the restaurant was stylish and cosmopolitan without being pompous and flamboyant. The service we received from Christina that evening was prompt and professional. I can't think of anything that I can even complain about other than them being out of Asahi that evening. But that was far from a deal killer. Shakou Sushi offered one of the more memorable sushi experiences I've encountered in all my travels. (Photo courtesy Fox Valley Magazine)
We don't make it to St. Charles often - might have to make a trip here. Food looks delicious. Jake's not so fond of sushi but I love it and haven't enjoyed any since we moved to STL.
Posted by: Jeni F. | June 17, 2016 at 06:20 AM
Make sure you know that this is in St. Charles, IL and not St. Charles, MO
Posted by: Road Tips | June 17, 2016 at 06:23 AM