Sushi Azabu and The Den, the noted restaurant tucked away in the basement at 428 Greenwich between Vestry and Laight, will close on Jan. 21. This is a big loss to the sushi-loving community and an especially tough loss for that quiet stretch of Greenwich. I saw the news on The Sushi Legend, which tracks all things sushi in the city; the restaurant’s general manager, Shotaro Takahashi, confirmed.

“The owner decided to close down,” Sho said when I asked if there was a specific reason. “Azabu was trending pretty well, especially towards the end of the year and hitting the best numbers.”

The restaurant predates this site — I believe it opened in 2008 — and over the years it has been noted in The New Yorker, which called it “sublimely intimate,” The Infatuation and The New York Times. The company has locations in Miami, Tokyo, Kyoto, Hanoi and Kuala Lumpur. “The Den was one of the few sushiya at the top level serving a nigiri-only omakase. For those of us – there are many – that prefer sushi to two hours of six otsumami, the news stings,” The Sushi Legend wrote. “A true temple in TriBeCa. Toshihide Terado is a fantastic itamae. He returned stateside from Japan in November 2022, and it will be a shame if he leaves again.”

The Den was the omakase restaurant in the basement, and was renovated in 2022; the top floor was originally Greenwich Grill, then Daruma-Ya, then it was all Azabu — including a sake bar they created in 2019 called Sankaku. There were tons of celebrity sightings; the upstairs most recently added lunch.

It also was part of the constellation of top-level sushi restauarants that the neighborhood has featured going back to Brushstroke and Masa. Eiji Ichimura, whose earned his first Michelin stars — two of them — at Brushstroke in 2014, is back on Greenwich and Laight, just south. But Sushi of Gari also recently closed on West Broadway.