3 Luxurious Omakase Spots Opening in NYC This Fall

Ask a New Yorker for their opinion on the city’s best fine-dining district, and few would tell you to head to Midtown… unless you ask for sushi. The neighborhood, with all its high-powered executives and high-spending tourists, has long been a hot spot for the Japanese cuisine. And in the coming months, three acclaimed chefs will debut new omakase offerings in the area. They’ll compete not just with one another, but also against a litany of high-end sushiya nearby, including Michelin three-star Sushi Sho.

“Midtown has been the city’s sushi heartbeat since the ’70s. What’s new is the omakase push,” says Sushi Legend’s anonymous author, a self-appointed online chronicler of America’s maki and nigiri set. “Sure, some of the 2026 openings are exciting, but if I could wave the Elder Wand, it’d be less chalkboard omakase, more mom-and-pop okonomi.”

Yet the new arrivals are anything but rustic. Take Midwestern import Mako, where dinners start at $350. With its smaller footprint—12 seats compared with 22 at chef B.K. Park’s Chicago original—the N.Y.C. location is aiming to be more refined than the Windy City spot, which first won a Michelin star in 2020. Two sushi chefs will take care of six guests each, and the food will be more detailed, featuring, for example, two types of rice instead of just one.

Across Bryant Park sits Kumiko Room, a 14-seat sushiya named for the complex style of Japanese wood assembly used to decorate the space. Behind the counter is longtime N.Y.C. sushi chef Yoshihiko Kousaka, who will serve a $325 seasonal menu with bites like silky, delicate striped jack or bluefin tuna marinated for five hours in a mixture of bonito broth, soy sauce, and Japanese cooking wine. “I decided to go back to the old style” of omakase, Kousaka says, meaning focusing on rice and fish. Many restaurants now include endless otsumami (light dishes like edamame or small portions of fish) before the sushi, he explains. Kumiko Room will serve just three such appetizers, followed by 10 to 14 pieces of sushi, soup, and one dessert. If you have room afterward, you can order seasonal specials from the à la carte menu.

Finally, just south of Central Park, chef Masahiro Yoshitake will helm the eponymous Sushi Yoshitake, which restaurateur Simon Kim describes as “Japanese Edomae-sushi refinement meets Gotham City’s sense of grandeur.” (Prices have yet to be determined.) According to Kim, it’s the first time a Michelin three-star sushi chef is coming to New York from Japan. Yoshitake, who Kim describes as a punk rocker at heart, says he’s going to have some fun with the menu. “I haven’t worked in New York since 1989,” he notes. “After all these years, I can’t wait to be able to actually see for myself how customers there today feel about sushi and what their reactions will be.”

Interestingly, all three sushiya are part of larger, multi-concept establishments: Mako is tucked within Shaver Hall, which now occupies the former Lord & Taylor building. Kumiko Room is one of three restaurants at One Bryant Park, where restaurateur KwangHo Lee is also opening a Japanese tasting-menu spot and relocating the Union Square kaiseki restaurant, Kappo Sono—he calls his coconspirators the “Avengers of chefs.” Sushi Yoshitake is part of Kim’s extravagant 550 Madison project (in the building’s past life as Sony Tower, chef Masaharu Morimoto led a private sushi restaurant for the company’s top brass), which is also home to an outpost of his Korean steakhouse Cote and a brasserie called Bar Chimera.

Like that vaunted executive dining room, a sense of exclusivity will set all three of the new entrants apart. Each member of the trio is somewhat hidden, tucked behind a secret door or accessible by a discreet elevator, but still in a mix with other eateries. And that dynamic might just encourage you to stay a little bit longer. “You can walk in, have a really amazing martini at Bar Chimera, and then head on up and enjoy [Sushi Yoshitake],” Kim says of 550 Madison, before ending the night with a D.J. set in the basement bar. “One given night, one perfect evening, three different experiences.” And, hopefully, ones worth repeating.