Steamboat Springs — At Saketumi, owner Kier Delaney says a chef’s only limitation is his or her imagination.

“I let them have free reign, but only if they make something I would eat,” says Delaney, who runs the restaurant in Ski Time Square with his brother Eric.

The avid snorkelers from Richmond, Ind., are big fans of the ocean, and their restaurant offers plenty of tasty aquatic creations. From the popular Bula Roll, which contains panko-fried shrimp topped with crab mix, avocado, tuna, sweet soy and spicy aioli, to the filet over lobster mashed potatoes, Saketumi has a menu catered from the ocean.

Delaney, who opened the restaurant in 2004, says the fish he serves is as fresh as can be. And if it isn’t, it gets sent back to where it came from. “Over time, our vendors just know not to send us inferior quality,” he says.

Saketumi fish is jet fresh, meaning it’s flown from its source, usually Hawaii, to the West Coast where it then makes one final flight to Hayden. Three days a week, sealed FedEx packages of fish cooled by ice arrive at the restaurant, but the fish is never frozen.

“The nicest thing you can hear in our restaurant is people saying they haven’t had sushi as good as Saketumi’s,” Delaney says.

Second place

Noodles & More Saigon Cafe

While it’s hard to pull yourself away from its rice noodle bowls and Vietnamese pho soup, saunter up to the sushi bar at Noodles & More Saigon Cafe and your ordering operandi might change for good. It’s just hard to go back to anything else. Sliced, rolled and served before your eyes (and ideally washed down with a Tsingtao beer), the full bar offers sushi with pizzazz, including unagi (freshwater eel), maguro (seared albacore), masago (smelt roe), amaebi (sweet shrimp) and cheek (baked yellowtail). Other favorites include the caterpillar roll (eel, cucumber, crab and avocado) and venerable crouching tiger roll (tuna tataki and shrimp tempura). “We prepare it all fresh daily,” owner Eric Nguyen says. “Plus, we add our own innovative touch.”

Third place

Spostas Sushi

Spostas is anything but traditional sushi. “We’re not trying to convince anyone we’re Japanese,” says owner Christian Talli, who admits to being “YouTube-trained” when it comes to rolling. You certainly wouldn’t know it from his offerings, which include traditional sushi fare — including a spicy tuna roll and its variation Christian’s roll, which adds firecracker sauce and green apple — and such nonconventional offerings as the Spam-tastic, fajita roll, fish taco roll and kids’ favorite tempura-fried PB&J. It also carries such locally themed concoctions as the local ground beef Yampa Valley roll and breakfast-oriented rolls, including the Morningside and alpenglow.

But perhaps best of all is its pricing, rolled out specifically for locals. During lunch, you can get two massive rolls for $9, with other specials available during happy hour. “I love sushi, but it was always too expensive here,” Talli says. “We wanted to bring the cost down so everyone can enjoy it. And the local support has been phenomenal.”