Shokitini

Great sushi in downtown Athens. I was pleasantly surprised. I sat at the sushi bar; the chefs were friendly and prepped my order beautifully. Everything tasted fresh and the portions were a good value for price paid. I would definitely return!

Awesome sushi and great service. Make sure to sit at the bar! Throughout the night the chef will pass along some freshly made freebies. Hands down the best sushi in town. The karaōke is great too! You get a private room, which for some reason has a HUGE table in it, with two screens and two mics. Went there for my bachelorette party and we had a great time.

Sitting at the Sushi bar is always a pleasure. My wife and I have been here more than a half dozen times in three years and the sushi is always fresh and the overall food quality is excellent. The list of rolls is extensive but not overwhelming. The service is consistently good, our most recent server, Maddie, was excellent — very attentive and made us feel welcome.

I would consider myself a regular. This is the best sushi in Athens and I cannot get enough. Try the JJ Fire roll or the Red Ninja. Great food and great atmosphere. It can get busy but that’s to be expected on a Friday or Saturday night in Athens. Worth the wait.

I’m surprised with the quality of sushi here in Athens. It’s slowly becoming a more Asian populated place in terms of its food. The only two sushi places that have had good ratings is Shokitini and Utage. Everything else seems to be take out or not authentic, Americanized sushi.
Shokitini is an interesting place, a very modern and hip ambiance. It’s like half into the ground, so walking downtown, it’s almost dipped into the streets, which made it a cool sight to see.
It was getting late on a Sunday night, so it was’t super busy, but our sushi still took a while to arrive. I was here for a date so it was a chance to talk and hang out, but we were so hungry by that time that we were watching the 3 – 4 sushi chefs they had that night. I forgot what we ordered, but I remember I wanted to try the Chef’s special roll? Basically a roll that was left up to the chef. It was not bad but nothing spectacular. It was slightly spicy imitation crab roll center with some tobiko (black fish roe) on top with a sauce and more imitation crab meat. I’m not the biggest fan of spicy so it just tasted like regular sushi. There were two spider rolls that they had and we got the jumbo. Afterwards, I felt like I had been cheated. Usually spider rolls are huge, almost twice the size of a regular California roll. You’re supposed to almost stretch your mouth all the way to get that one bite sushi experience that’s supposed to happen. Instead it was just a regular sushi roll with rice on the outside. I asked the server and the only difference was that the jumbo had more rice and maybe a bit more of the other ingredients, but still only 1 soft shell crab center. For almost twice the price of the junior, I’d rather get the junior.
The sushi tasted like sushi. There’s nothing bad about the place and the mood there is pretty nice and casual with a upscale bar-​like feel. But given that, there’s also nothing super amazing about the place. The sushi is priced a little high. We spent about $ 60? 65? for two people and I think it was somewhat not worth it, but I had my sushi fix.
I might go back again if I really crave sushi and I can’t afford to go back home to get me some Hayakawa, but it’s not the worst, and I’m impressed by the quality since it is a college town.

Waited 45 – 60 min for what was supposed to be a less than 20 min wait. Finally left when it seemed that there was no end in sight.

Hands down, one of my favorite places to eat in Athens. The wait staff is hit or miss, but the sushi chefs are always super friendly! I love to sit at the sushi bar with them. You get a free appetizer salad and fried oreo for desert. The sushi is always fresh, and I’ve never left unsatisfied.

Best sushi i have ever had. Staff is very nice and the restaurant is cool. Absolutely love it!!!

Everything was great until the main entrée came out. I was so disappointed, it was physically unappealing and it tasted like dog food. The service wasn’t great either. The atmosphere wasn’t bad, but I wouldn’t recommend this place. And it is a bit pricey for the quality of food that it is.

By FAR the BEST sushi in Athens!!! The atmosphere is very pleasant and the lighting is just right. I have always had good service here. The ginger salad and miso soup is always pleasant but the wide variety of yummy sushi rolls is what I love. Check it out. You won’t be disappointed.

The food is good. The dumplings and the sushi was really tasty. It is definitely one of the nicer sushi places in town, and I’ll be back. The Hawaiian chicken looks good and I think they give a couple extras if you sit at the sushi bar.
I was turned off a little when we entered though. We waited a couple minutes to be greeted. There was no hostess present and a waitress walked right by us without any acknowledgement of us there but she clearly saw us. When she walked by us again, I asked if there was a hostess and she said yes. She hesitated and then said she could seat us. The service after that was just mediocre.
I will be back for the sushi but I hope the service is better next time.

I’ve only been one time, but am looking forward to going again and again. We were there on a busy night, and quoted an hour’s wait. We were seated in more like 45 minutes, so that was nice. The food took a while to show up, but again, it was very busy, and you don’t usually go to a nice sushi restaurant because you’re in a hurry — it’s meant to visit and hang out with your friends/​family/​date. We went with a group of 5, and used that as an excuse to order several different rolls — we each picked 2. There was one we universally didn’t like (I can’t remember the name) and each of us had one other we didn’t like for personal tastes, but none of those were the same.
I was very surprised by the prices. I expected to be extremely expensive, based on the hype and the atmosphere, but I thought it was pretty average for a «real» sushi restaurant. The presentation was beautiful, the service excellent — it was a wonderful evening.

Favorite sushi restaurant in Athens. I get the UGA roll every time (because it’s too good to go without) but the restaurant is really reasonably priced and the presentation is great. The ginger salad and miso soup are great as well. And the fried rice… Well damn.

I’m write this review from the bathroom. You might as well go to mcdonalds because most everything there is fried and tastes like grease. Their maki is boring and super Americanized rube-​food. The unagi nigiri wasn’t even eel– just some weird fish with BBQ sauce. I realize that we are in a relatively small town in a hick state but there is better sushi/​japanese than Shokitini. The dynamite mussels gave my friend and I both painful diarrhea and burps that smelled like farts. Stay away.

This place definitely tries to be trendy and cater to students with a bit of money to spend. The sushi is ok but not special (there is no great sushi in Athens).

Great junky sushi in DTAthens. Highly recommend the Red Ninja — crispy tempura shrimp with spicy tuna on top, nested in crispies (unfortunately panko crumbs not true tempura crispies) with a trio of crazy, unnaturally bright colored streaks of sauce on top. Not too spicy but definitely has a kick. Service is also excellent — efficient and friendly.

Love this place!!!
Came here on Saturday night to get some dinner after the Blind Pig turned us away, and we were so glad they did! This place is awesome. Me and my husband each ordered one roll. I ordered the Crunch Roll and hubby ordered the Power Roll. My roll was amazing. It tasted just like the crunch roll at Niko Niko in Buford (which is my favorite sushi place) so I was very happy. For dessert we had something I had never heard of: fried Oreos. Oh.My.Goodness. Those things were addictive. Soft yet crunchy. Wow. Definitely order those when you go. Service was also quick and friendly, and business hours are great. Will be back for sure!

Very disappointed in our service tonight. Appetizers came out at the same time as the rest of our food. There is no room on our table. We asked he to hold other food back but she crammed it all on the table. This is not acceptable.

Wow, I had no idea private, Asian-​style karaōke rooms were available in Athens. You can find them at Shokitini, a trendy-​looking Japanese fusion and sushi restaurant located downtown. Thanks to fellow Atlanta Unilocalers Mike Y. and Viv W. for introducing a bunch of us to this place. We were part of an enormous group (40? 50? I don’t even want to count) that karaōke’d the night away in the business’s two biggest rooms until closing time.
The karaōke rooms are hidden upstairs. You have to walk through a few short, winding hallways to get to them. Once I stepped inside the karaōke rooms, I felt like I was back at any old Korean karaōke joint in Atlanta (e.g. Karaōke Melody, Sound of Music). For the most part, everything looked and felt the same, from the setup to the furniture to the karaōke system itself — yes, they use the same «standard» Korean karaōke system complete with Korean and other Asian language songs and Korean music videos.
Don’t worry. There’s enough English on the remotes and in the songbooks to get by. If anything, the staff can teach you how to operate the easy-​to-​use equipment.
The sound quality was good, the song selection was decent, and everyone had a good time. Several of the karaōke bars in Atlanta have better song selection, but for Athens, Shokitini works just fine. The fun part is the karaōke system’s scoring system. I think most people score at least 90 (out of 100) no matter how poorly they sing.
We imbibed on plenty of soju and I tried a small sampling of restaurant’s food menu. This included the edamame (boiled soy beans, sprinkled with salt), agedashi tofu (deep fried tofu marinated in sweet soy sauce), gyoza (pan-​fried pork dumplings), and some sushi rolls. Everything was appetizing and tasted quite alright. If anything, I recommend the agedashi tofu. That shareable appetizer was authentic and addictively delicious.
There were two American servers who handled our group. They did a remarkable job considering the size of our party and its numerous orders/​requests.
The downstairs dining area is nice. It does give off an Americanized sushi bar/​lounge-​type vibe. There are multiple bars and HDTVs, the highlight being the projected widescreen display behind the sushi bar. There’s also an enclosed patio outside next to the sidewalk. When we arrived at roughly 9:30pm on a Sunday night, the restaurant seemed moderately busy.
Several metered parking spaces are located directly in front of the restaurant on W. Clayton St. I was told parking is free after 10pm and all-​day on Sunday.

This place was awesome about accommodating a very large group of people Sunday night for an after-​wedding afterparty. We rented both private large rooms upstairs for karaōke, and the waitstaff were super attentive about keeping the food and drinks coming as we ordered them. The place is clean, with a decent song selection (English and Korean music). They will serve food and drinks from the bar and kitchen downstairs directly to the rooms as you order which makes for a much easier time to have fun without having to navigate those stairs to get your own drinks.
Awesome business, very easy to work with when trying to plan an event. Cool bar downstairs too with an outdoor space for warm summer nights.