Murasakitama

Push aside Murasakitama's exterior curtain and you step into another world. The contrast is stark – fixie bikes and skinny jeans on the street; décor that screams samurai chic inside. It's all lightwood and paper windows, that type of thing. It's a good set-up for the traditionalism of the product – the type of sushi bar where the master makes everything based on what he picked up at the market that morning.

Pick one of the sets (300-500RMB), or a colourful sushi platter (160RMB), and after that you're in the chef's hands. Don't fret: if you talk to the Chinese maestro, he'll wax poetic about his decade-long training in Japan. After a few preliminary questions, mostly about likely allergies, he gets to work.

Like many old-school sushi digs, eating at Murasakitama is as theatrical as it is culinary. The performance changes at every show, depending on what's fresh. Not every scene is going to suit the audience's fancy, but as a whole, the show's a hit. You're given an up-close vantage point to watch the chef mould each delectable ball of rice, slice every finger-length segment of raw fish and plop it on a black plate to be eaten instantaneously. But don't you dare add extra soy sauce or wasabi – the chef has prepared each morsel exactly as he wants it to be eaten.

The whole dining experience lasts around 30 minutes. There's no dessert, but the higher-level sets include appetisers. The differences between the sets are mostly qualitative, not quantitative – you're going to get about a dozen pieces of sushi either way. In particular, we loved the meltingly tasty length of grilled eel, the springy slices of flatfish and the rich sea urchin.

Its tight size and traditional air might make some feel uncomfortable – and the former means that reservations are necessary – but Murasakitama's atmosphere is about as informal as Japanese ever gets. The warm welcome from both owners and chef turned even the quiet Wednesday night we visited into a special occasion. There are even some cocktails on offer (around 70RMB), including a pretty stiff Negroni.

No longer do hutong residents have to jet over to Chaoyang for serviceable sushi – some of Beijng's best, freshest offerings are now on a slab in Gulou.

Open: 5pm-late daily

Telephone: 010-59476788

Address: 71 Gulou Dong Dajie, Dongcheng district, Beijing