It’s Sho time

Sushi Sho, Midtown East

RESTAURANTS • First Person

Roughly two years ago, I heard rumors that one of Japan’s sushi godfathers, Keiji Nakazawa, was planning to leave his impossible-to-book Honolulu counter Sushi Sho and relocate to New York City. 

It was hard to imagine. Nakazawa has fans around the world who make the pilgrimage to Waikiki Beach for his Hawaiified take on Edomae sushi. While Nakazawa adheres to fish preservation and curing techniques common for this style of sushi-making, his core ingredients are sourced locally, not from Japan — an unprecedented approach for someone at his level. During my two meals at Sushi Sho in Hawaii, that translated into pickled hearts of palm in place of the traditional gari (pickled ginger), Maui onion garnishes, and nigiri fortified with local seafood like Hawaiian bonito. While the word “fusion” comes to mind, it’s more pure than that, more natural. 

Flash forward to December, when I received an invitation for a preview dinner at Nakazawa’s forthcoming Sushi Sho, located off Bryant Park in Midtown. The rumor was reality. The chef had, indeed, relocated to our city. In two decades of covering New York City restaurants, no opening had captivated my attention in this way. (After several months of delays, the restaurant opened to the public two weeks ago.) 

Based on my meals with the chef in Hawaii, I was curious how much he would feature local New York ingredients — after all, New York can’t match Hawaii’s unbound access to supreme quality year-round produce. Maybe seafood would be easier to source — from the waters around Long Island? And how would he translate the sanctuary feel of his Waikiki Mecca?

To start, the dining room is stunning. The counter, similar to the one in Hawaii, is designed from hinoki wood in a U-shape, 10 seats, with an open backsplash area decorated with copper accents. Two old school, hand-carved hinoki wood fridges hold ice blocks to cool the fish — there’s no actual electric refrigeration. 

On Tock, the tasting menu is described as a “shorter omakase.” What that meant: nine small appetizers, eight nigiri bites, and three small in-between bites for a fixed price of $400. While this might sound like enough, it’s not: I wasn’t full after completing this first round. 

What happens next is the team passes out an additional nigiri menu, the Okonomi (“to one’s liking”) menu. On my visit, there were around 12 add-on options, which included a number of the chef’s signature bites, like sakura leaf-cured cherry trout (incredible), and nigiri made from a mix of aged and fresh squid. The dynamic pricing allows those who don’t want to drop $1000 or more on dinner to still dine, while those keen on the full experience can pay more to further probe Nakazawa’s mastery, which has made the trip intact. 

As for the ingredients, yes, there is pickled gari here. But it sits alongside three types of diced picked apples from Upstate. And as in Hawaii, Nakazawa is sourcing seafood locally, but here he’s also flying much of it in from Japan — a varying list, including aged wild yellowtail, hairy crab with vinegared egg yolk sauce, kelp-cured uni. It’s a little different, but it felt like a natural progression — a fittingly New York take at what I now consider to be the most important sushi counter in the world outside of Japan. –Kat Odell

→ Sushi Sho (Midtown East) • 3 East 42st St • Reserve: Tock, with instructions to email the restaurant for May bookings.