Literally Fish for Your Dinner at This Japanese Chain Opening in Chelsea

You’ll need a fishing pole at the soon-to-open Zauo, the restaurant where diners can fish for their dinner that’s debuting in Chelsea. Yet another Japanese chain opening in New York, Zauo will open its three-floor restaurant at 152 West 24th Street, where diners on the first two levels can sit in a “boat” and reel in fish from a tank stocked with ten different kinds of fish.

If the Chelsea location is set up like one of the Zauo locations in Japan, diners start by grabbing poles and purchasing bait before they “target the prey,” reads the website, though diners having a rough time can ask servers for advice. Once a diner has caught a fish it’s turned over to staff who takes it to be grilled, tempura-fried, or served as sushi in some cases.

Fishing for dinner is cheaper than not: “The regular price of a red-snapper is ¥3,360, but if caught it can be eaten for only ¥2,499,” says the website.

If this sounds like too much work, diners can head to the third floor, where sushi and higher-end dishes will be served — no fishing required.

It takes farm-to-table “and feeds it a barnful of meth,” says Vice about the restaurant — back in 2015 when the chain announced plans to open locations in New York and San Francisco. When reporter Drew Millard visited a branch in Tokyo, he said, “The restaurant's centerpiece is a series of tables made to look like a giant boat, surrounded by a moat full of fish. It looks, I can say without exaggeration, cool as fuck.”

No word yet on the date of opening, but we’ll keep you posted. In the meantime: