Michelin-Starred Japanese Chef Plans First NYC Restaurant

A Tokyo-based chef is replicating his Michelin-starred tasting menu restaurant here in New York.

Toru Okuda is expected to plant a location of his kaiseki restaurant Okuda in Chelsea at 458 West 17th Street in November. The tiny restaurant will only seat seven people, though a private dining room will seat six.

Each night will have two seatings, one at 6 p.m. and one at 8:30 p.m. No price is set yet on the Japanese tasting menu restaurant, but the Tokyo location costs about $168, and the Paris location costs about $234. Okuda’s Tokyo location has one Michelin star.

Okuda

Kaiseki tasting menu restaurants are considered the highest-end version of Japanese fine dining — a combination of seasonality and locality that balances flavor, texture, color, and temperature of ingredients. The chef’s other restaurant Kojyu currently has two Michelin stars and is considered one of the city’s most elegant versions of the haute cuisine.

Japanese fine dining restaurants have been making their way to New York at a fast clip, from sushi-only omakases to kappo-style restaurants. Although the sushi omakase are better known, the city is also flush with stunning upscale Japanese fine dining options as well.