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Masa
Masa opened in 2004 inside New York's Time Warner Center (now the Deutsche Bank Center), founded by chef Masa Takayama, and it quickly became known as one of the most expensive restaurants in the entire United States, with tasting-menu prices that have run into the hundreds of dollars per person for years, driven substantially by the restaurant's insistence on flying in fish directly from Japan's Tsukiji (now Toyosu) fish market. The restaurant earned three Michelin stars and has maintained that rating for years running, one of the longest-held three-star ratings of any restaurant in New York City, reflecting a level of consistency in execution that Michelin inspectors have recognized across repeated visits over more than a decade. Masa's dining room is built around a hinoki cypress wood counter imported directly from Japan, and the restaurant seats only a small number of diners per service, a deliberately intimate format that keeps the chef's personal attention on every single plate served during a given seating rather than delegating to a larger kitchen brigade. Masa's combination of its sustained three-Michelin-star rating, its direct-from-Tsukiji fish sourcing, and its position as one of the most expensive restaurants in the country has made it the reference point for high-end omakase dining in the United States specifically, the American answer to Tokyo's most legendary sushi counters.
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Sushi Nakazawa
Sushi Nakazawa opened in 2013 in Manhattan's West Village, founded by chef Daisuke Nakazawa, who trained for more than a decade as an apprentice under Jiro Ono at Sukiyabashi Jiro in Tokyo before relocating to the United States to open his own restaurant, giving the New York restaurant a direct lineage back to the world's most famous sushi chef. Nakazawa himself was featured prominently in "Jiro Dreams of Sushi," the documentary that made his mentor internationally famous, and his own restaurant's opening drew significant attention specifically because of that direct connection, with diners and critics eager to see how a Jiro-trained chef's technique would translate to an American restaurant. The New York Times awarded Sushi Nakazawa four stars in its opening year, an unusually fast and significant review for a brand-new restaurant, reflecting critical recognition that Nakazawa's Jiro-trained technique had translated successfully rather than being diluted for an American audience or market. Sushi Nakazawa's combination of its direct apprenticeship lineage to Jiro Ono and its rapid critical acclaim upon opening has made it one of the most significant American sushi restaurants specifically built around transplanting genuine traditional Edomae technique rather than an Americanized fusion approach.
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