Sushi in New York that won’t break the bank? It’s coming – diners have turned away from US$500 chef’s choice counters and restaurants are closing

High-end Japanese restaurants may have reached saturation point in New York – some are closing down and being replaced with more wallet-friendly options

The city’s affair with sushi continues but fewer diners are prepared to pay US$300 and up to eat – ‘just not realistic for most people’, one operator says

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A chef prepares uni nigiri at Noz Market in New York, opened as an “entry point to the world of high-end omakase without the intimidating price tag”. Chef’s choice meals cost US$140 there. High-end sushi restaurants in the city are closing. Photo: Instagram/@nozmarketnyc

Published: 4:15am, 14 Aug 2023

Over the past half-dozen years, New Yorkers have got used to spending hundreds of US dollars for chef’s choice sushi meals, a price tag that does not include drinks or the tip. But now the city might have reached saturation on those high-end omakase.

In late July, Midtown’s Michelin-star Sushi Ginza Onodera, the Tokyo-based brand that launched one of the city’s first high-end omakase in 2016 – asking US$400 for a roughly 20-course meal – said it would close on August 19.

That comes on the heels of the closing of Kotaru, the US$375 omakase spot within the modern Japanese restaurant Taru in Midtown,, both of which opened in December 2022.

In July, the space reopened as a more wallet-friendly US$159-per-person Thai-themed pop-up named Sushi on Me.

Sushi Ginza Onodera entered the US market in New York seven years ago. Photo: Instagram/@sushiginzaonoderanyc

Sushi Ginza Onodera general manager Yoko Yamaguchi says that New York’s sushi scene has matured dramatically since the debut of the restaurant, in particular, the “significant increase in the number of high-end omakase counters”.