TSPOT Sushi & Tea Bar

Great atmosphere, artful presentation, attentive service. Couldn’t ask for better. The Chicago Fire rolls were our favorite, but the unagi was super as well. Can’t wait to go back to try more.

Good sushi and tea. Just like the name says. Not my favorite sushi place, but it is good all the same. It has lounge style seating.

From the food to the service, the price to the ambiance, T Spot is definitely a place I’d recommend highly. The «Hot Spot» is absolutely delicious, but based on our server’s recommendation, I’ll be trying the «Chicago Fire» next trip. We went last night for the first time and it couldn’t have been a better experience. The service was outstanding, our server (Joel) could not have been friendlier or more accommodating, the unagi maki was TO DIE FOR, and the tea selection will blow your mind. At the end of the night, I was shocked at how low my bill was. All in all, its a fantastic meal in an adorable venue with incredible service. I wish I could give a sixth star.

Barf. So disgusting. I couldn’t even finish eating, the fish was obviously really old. Tiny portions at inordinate prices. I payed almost $ 30 for five pieces of inedible garbage. Totally absurd. There’s a good reason this place is empty every night.

I had miso soup and a spicy tuna roll. The soup was average. Could have used a little more tofu and seaweed, but whatever. The roll was pretty good. It was actually spicy, which was delightful. (I still put some wasabi on it though.) However, it was rather small.
I’m used to a small plate to rest your chopsticks on and one to hold the soy sauce. There’s only one plate for you at this place. I hope making the plate to double duty wasn’t rude.
Come between 5 and 6 for their specials. You get tea (a cup costs a whopping $ 3+ already) and a little smattering of whatever for $ 10, $ 15, or $ 20. No combination particularly blew me away, but it would have been nice to have the option.
The sushi chef was nice (I sat at the bar). The total was like $ 9.88 and I forgot Chicago has this no debit cards under $ 10 rule. How annoying. I offered to buy more, but the waiter let it slide. Cool.
Not something I would bother making my way back for though. The place only had 2 other tables at 6:30 ish.

Food was great and reasonably priced. The waiter was friendly and helped make suggestions. However, very slow service and the restaurant was near empty at the time.

Interesting experience… we were the only two people in the restaurant, perhaps just a slow night. However, it was quaint, relaxing, and a bit romantic in décor. I thought the sushi was good. It is BYOB, which who doesn’t love that. The waiter was pleasant. The prices were pretty standard. I wish I would have tried their tea selection because it looked quite extensive. Having experienced other sushi restaurants in Chicago, I would not recommend T Spot just because I feel as if you can get more for your money at other establishments (Sushi Para II, for example). Although, if you find yourself in the Northcenter neighborhood and are looking for a sushi restaurant, stop by and give them a try.
Feel free to come and check out my blog for reviews on other Chicago restaurants

Any person who doesn’t eat simply for the sake of sustenance knows there are varying levels of taste quality when it comes to dining out. Not so much due to cost, but to preparation and ingredients. So, then you know not all sushi is created equally. Mmmmmn hmmmn, let us proceed.
Walked in and were told we could seat ourselves. Ok, cool. I like being able to choose my seat. After about 5mins, someone finally approached our table with menus. The carry-​out folded up menus. Ohhhhhh-​kayyyyyyy. The thing is, I could tell they re-​use these menus cause they had tea stains on the bottom. Seriously?
Getting past the ridiculousness of the menus, a spicy tuna roll, gyoza, and spicy yellowtail roll were ordered. Now, these rolls were actually spicy. Like medium picante sauce spicy. I wasn’t expecting that and it was the type of spiciness that is separate from the rest of the flavors. It’s like it sits on top of the other flavors, distracting from them, so all you taste is whatever is causing heat. Was not good. The gyoza was soggy and tearing easily when picked up. It had too much liquid inside and barely any flavor. Just terrible.
Went on to try and make up for it with a spider roll and their futo-​maki. The spider roll was falling apart and everything was warm; rice, crab, wrapper. Just not good. My dining partner and I agreed the futo-​maki tasted like nothing. For it to have a bunch in it, that’s pretty bad.
As for the tea, I can’t have caffeinated tea and was pretty disappointed that there were only two decaffeinated teas on the menu. Coffee places have plenty of decaf, shouldn’t a tea bar too?
The service here was average. And I don’t mean that as something bad. As far as service is concerned, there’s average, below average and above average. The service was at the minimum what one should expect to receive when dining out. Average, yep. The décor is ok, but doesn’t really seem to follow a central theme.
I guess you could say I didn’t care for the place much and can probably gather I won’t be returning.

NO NO NO DONT GO!
Nice server/​lousy sushi

To my great disappointment this place can only get 2 stars.
The good:
Spicy tuna is made with chili oil: an elegant, non-​mayo version
Rolls are all tasty — the Chicago Fire Roll is a standout
Friendly service
Outdoor seating
BYOB with no corkage fee
With all this, why 2 stars? The one «negative» is (as at least one other reviewer noted) their fish-​to-​rice ratio is exceedingly low. The rolls need WAY more fish in them and about ½ the amount of rice they are currently made with.
Seriously, most of what I experienced here was good, even above-​average, but if your rolls have hardly any fish, what are you paying for?

I’m mainly just writing to advise on the corking fee: there is none!!! It sounds like there used to be a $ 10 corking fee (WHAT?!?) which is absolutely outrageous. I go here ever few months or so b/​c it’s über convient, I live on Byron so when I’m feeling lazy it fits the bill. The sushi is mediocre, as other people have pointed out.
Don’t let the corking fee deter you. I even called ahead and the woman confirmed there is NO corking fee — maybe they saw the awful reviews here and decided it was a horrible idea.
Disclaimer: I went around 7pm on a Wednesday, I hope the «no corking fee» applies to weekends as well. Call ahead to be sure.
Nice waiters, so-​so sushi. Close and convenient. ok bye.

The Chicago Fire roll sounded good, looked even better– however as I am about to eat this colorful prettiness Carla loudly shrieks «Ewwwww!!!»
Here I thought it because her fiancée doesn’t eat fish.
Oh no.
There is a curly hair actually wound into the fish on the roll, conspicuously sticking out like some alien antennae.
Ew is an understatement.
Not going back. Ever.
P. S. It IS funny in retrospect, but I’m still not going back.

I’ve been to the T-​Spot a number of times now and I’ve enjoyed every single visit. The wait staff is friendly and very accomadating. I was waiting for my date to show up so I decided to some comic books while I waited. Most people take this opportunity to tell me «Comics are for losers». Instead of pissing on my hobby, they simply turned the lighting up for me. Definite points.
It’s a small cozy place with probably no more that 10 –12 tables. They’ve got a great selection of teas and rolls. Their specialty rolls are really where the food shines. The more common Maki rolls are a tad boring once you’ve had the «T-​Spot» specialty rolls. The Chicago and The Lincoln are a pair of other great rolls. The specialty rolls are a tad pricy at around 14 — 18 dollars, but still very tasty.
The restaurant is BYOB so if you want to have a drink be sure to bring your own wine. I’m not sure what the corking fee is but I would guess it’s somewhere around $ 10 dollars. Whenever I have to pay a corking fee, I tend to bring a cheaper bottle, effectively making a $ 10 dollar bottle $ 20 dollars.
One thing I need to warn you about. One of the waiters has a 99% identical twin. That has nothing to do with the food or service, but you feel like a real a$$ when you’re having a conversation with him about your previous trip and he has no idea what you’re talking about.

This is a good date place, with it’s modern and cozy ambiance. Artful and delicious sushi. BYOB.
It lacks some stars, because I just prefer the cheaper, mom and pop type sushi places over the ones that make everything beautiful but then charge more. Doesn’t mean that this place isn’t reasonable for what it is. On the contrary, it is reasonable.
Everyone is always friendly. It’s never been too crowded.
Not on the top of my list, but I will definitely go back!

I really like this place. Quiet, serene vibe, beautiful interior… romantic and intimate. Plus the sushi is great. I’ve always enjoyed every visit. Never loud, never crowded. A great place to have a quiet dinner, especially on weeknights!

I’ve had nothing but positive experiences at T Spot. My wife likes the wide selection of teas and I like the calm atmosphere and proximity to our apartment, so we end up going here often.
The owner and servers are friendly and they pace the meal nicely. I like to start off with the salad trio, which includes seaweed salad, octopus salad and squid salad. It always comes out tasting cool and fresh. The Miso soup is also pretty good.
The Chicago Fire roll is my favorite thing to get. The whitefish ponzu is also delicious. The spicy tuna, California roll and most of the other standards are on the good side of average. I vaguely remember having a piece of scallop sashimi that tasted a bit off during one visit, but other than that, everything I’ve had there has been good (great, on occasion).
While I wouldn’t call T Spot a good value, I feel the prices are fair. The atmosphere in the restaurant is cozy and relaxed without being soporific. That coupled with the friendly staff makes this one of my favorite places for a quiet sushi dinner.

I had a couple of rolls — decent but nothing to rave about. T Spot does have a nice selection of teas. The restaurant is a tad bit pricey for average sushi.

I had dinner here tonight so the memory is still fresh… not like their sushi.
Two stars for the cool tea selection… I tried the white tea… white symphony… pretty decent except we ordered a «pot» and got an extra large glass… um ok.
Someone mentioned that the outside seating wasn’t very comfy… well my friend leaned over to tell me something and cracked the chair in half… well we had a good laugh as I called him «Fattie» for the rest of the meal. (By no means is he fat… you know you can’t call a mentally retarded kid a retard… but you can call your normal IQ friend a retard anytime… same idea).
Aaaah the sushi… so so so below average. My sashimi sampler came out AFTER the meal, after the rolls. I thought they forgot about it, since it took so long to bring it out, but guess not and it was $ 25 bucks… geez for 12 pieces of sashimi (all mediacore if not on the bad side)…that’s a bit steep… we had edamame, three rolls, the tea, and the sashimi and the bill was $ 70 bucks. I don’t mind dishing out the cash for GOOD sushi, but not this stuff. The T-​spot roll was decent, the Boston and Alaska were tiny and blah.
The staff were all friendly but unfortunately a bit on the slow side.
Nope, not coming back here again.

Its decent but nothing great. The best part was the tea selection.
I think it was a bit pricey for what you get. I can probably eat double the amount at Toro for what I get here. The Chicago Fire roll was skimpy on meat. The Hot Spot roll was tasty
If it wasn’t so much more expensive than other better sushi places it would have gotten 3 stars. But they lost one

I moved to the neighborhood 5 months ago and it was not until recently that I realized T Spot was not a coffee shop or a bar, but actually a sushi joint. I think that the logo screams «coffee shop» while the décor screams «bar». If I hadn’t involuntarily caught the lettering that read, «sushi & tea bar» on the logo, I would never have figured that the place served sushi.
With that said, I found their food and service to be quite mediocre during my first and last visit there. The somewhat pricey food isn’t exceptionally good nor bad, but just alright (read: not worth the extra money). Our server was friendly, but really slow for no apparent reason, as we were the only customers in the whole restaurant. The whole experience was just flavorless (not literally — the sushi had flavor, thankfully) and monotonous. There is absolutely no schtick there at all.