Sushi Zen & Izakaya

Sushi Zen & Izakaya operates inside the 18090 Collins Avenue plaza in Sunny Isles Beach, sitting between Saffron Indian Cuisine and Baires Grill within the same busy commercial cluster. The restaurant’s name references the izakaya, a style of casual Japanese pub that pairs small plates and shared dishes with drinks, a format distinct from a straightforward sushi counter and one that has grown in popularity across major American cities over the past decade.

This plaza already includes Rice Asian House & Sushi Bar just a short walk away at 17100 Collins Avenue, giving this stretch of Sunny Isles Beach two separate sushi-focused restaurants within a few blocks of each other, a sign of consistent local demand for Japanese food along this part of the corridor. Sushi Zen’s izakaya framing suggests a menu built around a broader range of small plates, appetizers, and drinks alongside its sushi offerings, rather than sushi rolls and nigiri as the sole focus.

Outdoor seating is available at Sushi Zen, matching the format found throughout the plaza and the broader Collins Avenue corridor. Detailed information about the restaurant’s specific menu, hours, pricing, and ownership was limited during research for this listing, and no working phone number, website, or social media account could be located. As with several of its neighbors in the same plaza, the restaurant appears to rely primarily on local foot traffic and word of mouth rather than an extensive independent online presence.

For diners in Sunny Isles Beach looking for a Japanese izakaya-style experience rather than a straightforward sushi bar, Sushi Zen offers a specific alternative within the same commercial cluster as several of the neighborhood’s other independent restaurants. Given the limited independently verifiable information currently available, anyone planning a visit is encouraged to confirm current hours and menu details in person before making a specific trip.

Sushi Zen’s location fits within the broader pattern of Sunny Isles Beach’s development. Incorporated in 1997, the city is one of the newer municipalities in Miami-Dade County, built on a narrow barrier island bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Intracoastal Waterway to the west. The rapid construction of oceanfront condo towers from the late 1990s through the 2000s earned the city its informal nickname, “Florida’s Riviera,” and left the current mix of ground-floor retail plazas, like the one housing Sushi Zen, tucked beneath residential buildings along nearly the entire length of Collins Avenue. That layout means a restaurant like Sushi Zen typically draws customers from the building above it and the immediate surrounding blocks first, with additional visitors arriving from elsewhere in the city or from nearby Aventura and Bal Harbour drawn by the corridor’s overall concentration of small, independent restaurants.