Downtown’s new hand-roll sushi bar, HRB, is now open—and there’s a Westside location on the way

Time Out | by Stephanie Breijo

DTLA’s affordable sushi champion has some new competition.

HRB: The Hand Roll Bar Experience finally opened its doors over the weekend after months behind papered-over windows and mouthwatering Instagram posts teasing out what’s to come. Now, the casual hand-roll restaurant and sake bar is open on 6th Street all day, daily, with a Century City outpost set to launch in December. 

The new counter seating spot sits just blocks from the neighborhood’s sushi go-to, Sugarfish, as well as Kazunori Nozawa’s sibling hand-roll shop, KazuNori. On Sunday HRB entered the market with crispy nori, warm rice—a Sugarfish staple—and comparable prices, with hand-rolls at $5 apiece. 

While HRB and the Sushi Nozawa empire might appear identical from the outset—you can even order informational, aesthetic, bento-like branded boxes of sushi to-go from both—HRB stocks double the sake as most L.A. Sugarfish locations, and offers it at $2 per shot.

Its sake bar, which sells bottles from Berkeley, California, as well as international storied brewers such as Nigita’s Hakkaisan, isn’t the only focus; HRB also prides itself on sustainability and quality of its fish, promising to cite its daily sources to every customer.