Acclaimed sushi chef Cody Auger has been patiently waiting to convert his pop-up Sushi Fukami into a full-fledged restaurant for nearly a decade now. It’s always just been a matter of timing.
Nigiri enthusiasts in Portland have likely been following Auger’s
journey in the sushi world for some time — as the Oregon-born-and-raised co-founder of the city’s highly acclaimed omakase-focused Nimblefish, Auger and a small number of Japanese chefs, including Hiro Ikegaya of Mirakutei and Kaoru “Caru” Ishii (previously Hokusei), can be credited for popularizing Edomae-style sushi in Portland in the early 2010s. The Edomae technique is a particular style of fish curing, cooking, and preservation developed in the pre-refrigeration Edomae period in Japan. The process results in deeper flavors.
Auger conceived the idea for Sushi Fukami well before Nimblefish came into the picture. Auger was the lead chef at notable Pearl District sushi restaurant Hokusei, and when it closed in 2015, he flipped the space into the first iteration of Fukami Sushiya and operated there until the end of Hokusei’s lease in 2017. The idea for Fukami was more or less the same as what’s to come: niche fish, composed dishes, and intimate seating. The concept popped up at Davenport on East Burnside during the summer of 2017, but Nimblefish, which opened that December, soon took precedence over Fukami. In 2022, Augur did a “year-ish” tenure in 2022 as executive chef at the Japanese outdoor brand-owned Takibi in the Alphabet District.
Sushi Fukami returned in 2025 when Auger stepped away from Takibi. Auger initially revived Fukami for a six-month stint at Nimblefish before the idea began to take shape as an intimate omakase. As first-reported by The Oregonian, Sushi Fukami opens as a fully realized restaurant in downtown Portland on Friday, September 18. The restaurant is already — and, perhaps, unsurprisingly given the limited seating — booked up.
Fukami is intentionally small. Its previous tenant Lil’ Shalom’s high-vaulted ceilings are now masked by low-hanging hemlock wood beams, and Auger has added navy blue walls that hide any action taking place in the back of house. “I think it’s really simple,” he says of the buildout, which he designed utilizing his own pre-kitchen experience in the trades and architecture. (Auger was, at one point, an architecture student.) “It doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles. Hopefully that helps you hone in on the experience.”
As the only chef working the counter at Sushi Fukami, Auger has the opportunity to fully express himself, utilizing the culmination of his sushi experience and his work at Takibi. Auger plans to offer various types of uni, monkfish liver, and Hokkaido kinki, as well as shellfish and squid — items that typically don’t fly off the menus at conventional sushi joints.
Additionally, the space’s full kitchen allows him to cook anything and everything he’s ever dreamt of serving. Working with a charcoal grill, Auger will be able to serve various types of yakimono. There will also be a tight menu of unique Japanese whiskys and sakes, curated by operations manager Billy Poplarchik.
“I think the omakase at Fukami is just stylistically a little bit different,” he says. “It’s a lot more composed dishes, almost double the amount compared to Nimblefish. And then we’ll have certain types of nigiri we’d never serve there. I would say it’s more of a sushi lover’s menu than something that we need to make sure is enjoyable for most people.”
Fukami’s offerings also allow Auger to keep Nimblefish’s omakase relatively affordable ($125 per person). “At Nimblefish, we have it built a certain way, and we wanted to keep that program the way that it is — not make it too expensive, make it accessible, that kind of thing.” In contrast, Fukami’s omakase is $195 per person.
After a series of left turns and a lot of permitting and buildouts later, Auger is eager to get back to the fundamentals with wisdom and perspective. “I’m super excited to just get to make food again. I mean, I still have some other things with Nimblefish, but it’s been a while since I’ve really worked on a menu and developed it and put it out for folks. And then seasons change, and I get to do it all over again. So it’s gonna be nice to just get my hands dirty again.”
Sushi Fukami is located at 1128 SW Alder Street; opening on Friday, September 18, and Wednesday through Saturday thereafter for one seating per night; reservations are released every month, two weeks before the start of the month, on Opentable; for updates about reservations and special events, follow Sushi Fukami on Instagram.
