You may experience a giddy feeling as you ring the doorbell outside Yoshino, and it’s not just because you’re about to experience one of New York’s most expensive omakase meals, at a restaurant marked only by a small, very simple plaque. It’s the anticipation—building from the moment the host called to confirm your reservation a few hours earlier—of entering another world.

The maître d’ lets a few people into the foyer at a time—tourists celebrating an anniversary, a small family marking a graduation, a couple of tech millionaires—and the door is swiftly shut and locked. A host tucks you into a comfortable hinoki seat, where you’ll spend the next two-and-a-half hours communing with some of the most delicious, beautifully prepared, and quietly thrilling seafood the city has to offer. Jazz meanders through the speakers, time seems suspended, and the giddy feeling only grows stronger.

photo credit: Will Hartman

photo credit: Will Hartman

photo credit: Sonal Shah

photo credit: Sonal Shah

As guests place drink orders, sous chefs prepare the first appetizer. They're supervised by Tadashi Yoshida, a chef who moved to New York after closing his successful restaurant in Nagoya. He slices and displays the night’s three cuts of tuna like a prized work of art. Bottles of sake that cost about the same as a round-trip, first-class flight to Tokyo are opened, and poured into glassware that sparkles like the top of the Chrysler Building. And then, the first bite is served.

photo credit: Sonal Shah

photo credit: Sonal Shah

photo credit: Sonal Shah

photo credit: Will Hartman

Hairy crab, uni and caviar—three ingredients that, piled on top of each other, could elsewhere feel too much—come together with a luxurious, subtle sweetness in a delicate etched-glass bowl, or sometimes in a white ceramic goblet, streaked with green. Most of the following appetizers contain a fatty element, like fried monkfish with sweet, syrupy sauce, ladled out of a bowl held by iron tongs. Or firefly squid, like Gushers full of sea flavor, served with plump and juicy pieces of white asparagus from France, and a citrusy, peppery sprig of sansho. 

photo credit: Sonal Shah

photo credit: Sonal Shah

photo credit: Sonal Shah

photo credit: Sonal Shah

After some sizzling, binchotan-related fanfare with pressed-mackerel sushi—just one of many elegant little flourishes along the way—the nigiri portion takes center stage. Starting with a few lighter pieces, like gizzard shad and tiger prawn, the meal crescendos with chiaigishi chutoro: tuna belly cut near the bloodline. It's a best-of-both-worlds piece: fatty, yet flavorful, and worth the price of admission by itself. 

Things wind down with a bowl of ice cream, and a souvenir: a napkin, designed by the chef every season, and hand-dyed in Japan. Hold it close. It’s the only thing that’ll keep you locked into that blissful state as the cars honking on Bowery greet you back into the real world.

Food Rundown

Omakase

You only have one option at Yoshino. The omakase is $648: $500 for the meal, with service and tax included. You’ll get around 20 courses: including about seven appetizers, seven pieces of nigiri, a soup, a hand roll, tamago, and dessert. The beverage menu includes sakes and wine—with more accessible by-the-glass options, and rare bottles. Dishes change, often putting seasonal Japanese ingredients in conversation with international ones, but here are some of the things you might eat:

photo credit: Will Hartman

Kinmedai Soup

Poached golden-eye snapper is served in a smoky, bonito-forward dashi that could warm up the coldest night. Homey and comforting, it’s a deceptively humble dish—if not for the four perfect coins of shaved white truffle on top, we could forget, just for a second, where we were.

photo credit: Will Hartman

Grilled Hokkaido Scallop

While these soy-marinated scallops are grilling over binchotan, the chef walks around showing off the slices of tuna that he’ll serve later and telling you how each various piece was fished. It’s impossible to pay attention, because of the smoking scallops permeating the space, sending us into a reverie of charcoal and gnarled driftwood. Once the scallop is cooked to a slight bite and served wrapped in a piece of nori, it isn’t quite as distracting—though the caramelized smoky, umami flavors are bold.

photo credit: Will Hartman

Kohada

The first nigiri of the night, this piece of gizzard shad is a textural wonder, with taut skin, and delicate flesh. It’s also your introduction to Yoshino’s sushi rice, with individual grains seasoned and cooked to absolute perfection.

photo credit: Will Hartman

Chiaigishi Chutoro

Pink on one side, and red on the other, this piece of tuna looks like a tequila sunrise. It’s split down the middle to blanket the rice, leaving a mohawk-like line of fish on top. This is the calling card of the chef, and one of the bites that makes Yoshino feel like an experience that you cannot have elsewhere.

photo credit: Sonal Shah

Anago

The sleeper hit of the nigiri, and the final course at our recent meal. With so many raw fish textures before it, this velvety piece of eel—neither cooked hard on the grill nor drowning in overly sweet sauce, feels unique.