For those who love sushi and also for whom money is no object, Masa is a restaurant to experience at least once.
Masa is a sushi and Japanese food restaurant located in Manhattan and is the most expensive restaurant in New York City and the most expensive sushi restaurant in the United States.
Masa is omakase-only (chef’s choice) and has no menu. An omakase dinner for one costs $450, not including tax, tips or drinks. Kobe beef costs an additional $150.
The chef behind Masa is Masayoshi Takayama, who opened the restaurant in 2004.
Masa is only one of four New York restaurants with three Michelin stars and the first Japanese restaurant in the country to have received as many.
The restaurant’s fish is imported fresh from Japan and is rarely ever frozen. “Just, the thing is my ingredients. I don’t think they have equals.” Takayama told Eater.
According to the restaurant’s website, “The food is prepared quickly, and plated for guests as soon as ready to preserve the idea that each dish is still in a living, being state.”
The restaurant is minimally and elegantly designed, with a $60,000 hinoki wood sushi counter that is sanded daily to ensure smoothness.
“Refined beauty that isn’t affected by time or social changes. Shibui is never complicated or contrived. Purity of being, of living, of sensing is inherent in all elements of the Masa experience.” the restaurant states.
The restaurant’s food isn’t the only thing that’s expensive. Reservations must be made with a credit card, and cancellations — even for one person in a party of diners — not made within 48 hours of the reservation time will mean a $200-per-person fee.
Written by Editorial Staff, Next Shark | Haute Living
