Masa

Masa has run on omakase alone since Takayama opened it on the fourth floor at Columbus Circle in 2004, and all twenty-six seats eat the same way, five or six small appetizers, then fifteen to seventeen pieces of sushi, then seasonal fruit. Dinner is $950 a person at the counter and $750 at a table, while lunch, at $495, is the shorter version, built on the toro tartare with caviar and a run of nigiri. A longer seasonal menu added this year runs $1,200 and takes one or two people at a time. Ohmi beef comes with shaved truffle.

Takayama grew up in Tochigi Prefecture, where his family kept a fish shop and a catering business and he delivered sashimi to neighbors on his bicycle. He had meant to be a surgeon. Eight years of apprenticeship at Ginza Sushiko in Tokyo came instead, then a restaurant of the same name in Beverly Hills, then New York. The ceramics the food arrives on are his own designs, made with artisans in Japan.

A dinner runs about two hours. Corkage holds at $300 a bottle and two bottles a reservation, whatever the size of the party, and gratuity stays optional, split evenly across the floor when it is left at all, sommeliers and grill chefs included. The dining room discourages strong scent, on the grounds that it competes with the subtle smells of the food. Reservations come out in batches.