15 East Restaurant

The Sushi Omakase was very unique and very tasty — quite a few choices that are not common in sushi restaurants across the city. Nice selection of appetizers too — we had Japanese oysters. Great food, excellent service — and Yoko Ono was eating lunch there too so that says something (though I will leave that for you to decide).

Guys, I have been frequenting some of the finest sushi establishments in the city, always for the omakase. I proclaim 15 East the best omakase I have had to date. The bill was $ 609 not including tax. However, every single delectable piece of sushi crafted with the utmost TLC by the chef was a favorite. 3 kinds of Uni, the toro, and the eel were beyond any words the human language can justify. We each had the 22 piece omakase, shared a bottle of junmai ginjo sake recommended by the manager, plus a carafe and 2 bottles of Sapporo.

Good! The service was really nice. One of the manager introduced the red wine very patient. We went there during the Christmas Eve. They only offer the fix menu and you can order sushi if you like.

When you are in the mood for sushi then the 15 East is the place for you. Try to get a seat at the sushi bar and let the chef feed you what’s best that day. Then pair your food with an incredible list of sakes or wines if you choose. You can’t go wrong.

Not really sure how I didn’t review this place yet, but it is one of the best sushi restaurants I’ve ever been in. This michelin star establishment will bring the taste of Tokyo to your mouths.

Took me some time to write the review as I was overwhelmed!
When my friends from Japan told me that we would go to this michelin-​rated sushi restaurant, I was skeptical. Sorry to Unilocal reviewers, but I just cannot trust Unilocal,Zagat (horrible!) reviews when it comes to Japanese restaurants. Most of them seem to LOVE fake Japanese restaurants, serving dishes that are completely against what the Japanese food is all about (OK, I should stop myself). Although Michelin is prestigious, but I was not completely sure.
We sat at the sushi bar for omakase. My friends were Mr. Shimizu’s clients when he was working in Japan. This proved that Mr. Shimizu had the good skills and experience.
All the dishes were AMAZING. There was no need to use soy sauce as every fish was fresh and had its own taste (see, a fake sushi restaurant needs to use many ingredients and sauces over a roll to hide low quality ingredients.)
Mr. Shimizu has a fish encyclopedia with him, and he will be able to show you each fish on your plate.
I finished the dinner with a dessert — Mineoka — soy milk and kudzu with kurosato syrup. It was the best! It is like a soft tofu texture — smooth.
Mr. Shimizu is very talkative, knowledgeable, and funny at times. And the service was impeccable.
I told our 17-​year old son that he was such a lucky child to be able to experience this at this young age.
Highly recommended!
He does not serve things like dragon rolls and alike, just to inform you…

I haven’t heard of this place before until my friend took me and whoa, I was totally blown away with how amazing and fresh the fish was! We ordered several dishes. To start, we had the sashimi and tartare of bluefin tuna which was delicious — I would totally get this again.
Following that, we had 11 varieties of Japanese seaweed which I was not Impressed with. They pretty much all tasted the same to me, which was tasteless… but maybe that’s what it’s supposed to taste like?
We each had the sushi omakase after which was amaaaazing. The rice was nice and you could tell the fish was very fresh.
We finished off having the cherry wood smoked duck which tasted nice if you ate each bite combining all three items (duck, mushroom, yam).
The service was fantastic too. A sake connoisseur recommended a bottle of sake to compliment our meal which went well with all of our dishes.
Overall, it was a great experience and was well worth the price and the trip!

Small modern Japanese spot that hosts about ¹⁰⁄₁₅ tables. We made a lunch reservation about a week before on open table and the process was painless compared to some of the other high end Japanese restaurants in New York.
We ordered two plumtinis as we were intimidated by the extensive sake menu and our waiter was not great at recommending our drinks.
Food wise we got lobster/​uni risotto, a roasted duck dish, sushi/​sashimi plate, and cold soba with uni. Ebi from sashimi plate was omfg delicious. Everything else is fresh and unsurprisingly pleasant.
Overall, the restaurant was not a wow place, but cute and decently priced for lunch.

Wow. I was lucky enough to go on a date to this delicious restaurant. I started out with the foie gras appetizer that was on some toasted bread and had a blackberry on it with a mouth watering sauce. This was one of the best appetizers that I have had in a really long time. My date ordered the cod appetizer, which was good just not as great as the foie. The fish was so tender though, it broke apart as we stuck our forks into it. The star of the meal was the tasting plate. It was 10 pieces of nigiri. Very high quality fish. Overall the service was fantastic with the waiter explaining every thing, and the food came out incredibly quick.

I thought the fish was excellent quality I thought the craft was generally good. Unfortunately I saw I thought some of the simpler items on the menu for poorly executed on, an indicator of thoughtfulness, I found disappointing.
The service was spotty at best. The waitress got part my order wrong and I found some of the attitudes unfortunate.
The design of the restaurant was also a little weird. The mirror is disorienting, there’s only one bathroom that can only be used by one person at a time, and the bar is not designed for American sized people.
I can understand why was awarded a star. Unfortunately it has not warranted Travis star. I will continue my search for an adequate sushi restaurant to frequent.

So I came here yesterday at the behest of my wealthy friends. Poor them, taking pity on me, a plebeian in their friend circle. But whatever, they were paying and I wasn’t going to complain. Who else gets treated to a one Michelin star restaurant in a platonic setting? I get to have a fine dining experience and don’t have to put out? Count me in!
My friends and I arrived at 9:15PM for our 9:30PM reservation and we were immediately greeted. The hostess took our bags and put them in the closet and then brought us to our seats. The restaurant was dimly lit and it had a romantic ambiance. There was a strategically placed mirror that made the restaurant look a lot bigger than it really was. Overall this place screams romantic fine dining. American Psycho, anyone?
My friends and I were given menus and our server (host?) explained the different menu items. Me, being a poor peasant, stared at the menu wide-​eyed. Is this how the other half lives? My friends told me to get the sushi omasake, which is, what I ultimately ordered. I wanted to order the salmon entrée but my friends (and their wallets) were extremely convincing in regards to having me change my order to the sushi omasake.
After a little bit, my sushi omasake came out. Our waiter explained the different pieces of sushi that were chosen but because the restaurant was so dimly lit, he had to use the candle to see what piece he was talking about. Sexy, right? Because I’m a pleb, I don’t really care about the nuances of fine dining, but let me tell you, the pieces of sushi were so fresh and delicious, I wish I could rewind and eat it again. I found that the small hints of wasabi mixed in with the rice really brought out the different flavors of the fish, and all of these flavors exploded with the addition of soy sauce. Like wow. How will I ever go back to cheap sushi again?
My friends also ordered the uni soba, which was split between the four of us. The homemade buckwheat noodles and the fresh uni blended perfectly together and I wish that there was a bigger portion offered. My friend also dropped some money on an octopus appetizer, and I honestly have to say, I’ve never tasted octopus like that before. The octopus was tender, yet tough, and it tasted more like grilled fish than octopus. If I was blindfolded and I tasted a piece of that, I would ¹⁰⁄₁₀ say it was fish, not octopus. Wow.
However, even though the food was amazing, if I came here on my own accord, I probably wouldn’t give it five stars because I’m not a classy individual who consistently dines finely. But because I didn’t pay, I will give this place the best rating. Some downsides of this place to consider:
1. Small portions (but hey, that’s how fine dining works, right?)
2. Condescending host (maybe it’s cause we were all young Asians)
3. Dark and small restaurant
*Note: apparently if you cook octopus and other shellfish (like shrimp or scallops) in 140C water, you will maintain the tenderness of the meat — according to our condescending host
Overall, while the food was amazing and the dining was fine, I would not come back here on my own accord (because I am poor and not fine)

Bottom line: the food is good as expected from a Michelin-​starred restaurant and service was meticulous, but this is still overpriced and underportioned.
Came here on a Thursday night — the dining room is very small and cozy, it is a separate room from the sushi bar. The ambiance is nice, mostly couples with 2 – 3 tables of larger groups.
The service was thoughtful if a little impersonal, they thought ahead and pre-​split our hot soba into 2 smaller bowls to share and quickly removed debris and empty plates from our table. They have a high staff: customer ratio to do this.
We got the hot soba with added mushrooms to start — for $ 22 it was good but way overpriced, similar to a good miso tofu soup that comes w/​compliments at some other high-​end Japanese restaurants in the city. A $ 16 miso cod appetizer came with exactly two bite-​size pieces and was good but not exceptionally so. The main courses were fairly small (scallops at $ 36 came wit only 4 pieces and belt fish at $ 32 came with 2 pieces). The scallops were very good, tender and seared nicely with a strong truffle flavor. The belt fish was mediocre.
For dessert they gave us a complimentary yuzu mochi for my fiancée’s birthday which was a nice touch and a great palate cleanser.
The only bad touch on service is when the bill came back after the credit card swipe, they circled the suggested gratuity section 5 times with a pen (20%, 22%, 25%). C’mon, is that really necessary at a Michelin-​starred establishment?
Overall my takeaway is that the ambiance and service is good while the food can be had for cheaper at many Japanese alternatives in NYC.

My fiancé and I took part in the tasting menu omakase at the sushi bar and although service was stellar, we were far from blown away. Considering the price tag, we were hoping for some blow your mind flavors and a bit or originality. Additionally the layout and ambiance was nothing spectacular and a bit off putting considering the bustle of wait staff behind us and the management eyes on us all as we ate.
The cocktails were a bit disappointing as well. Overpriced and lacking alcohol. The ones we had were either too sweet or had the alcohol potency of an over spritzed beverage.
The sakizuke or amuse was pretty remarkable in its freshness and creativity but didn’t execute on taste. The hassun or array of small dishes earned points for providing us a few dishes we had never had before, but once again, they were somewhat mundane in flavor. And the soup was far too clammy flavored. I appreciate their execution of minimalism but maybe some additional flavors included would have elevated the dish from just ocean or fish flavor. The sashimi course was appreciated but the pieces were somewhat diminutive in size. The nigiri pieces was where the meal actually measured up to our expectations. The fish was phenomenal. The options were across the board from items we’ve never had before to the ubiquitous mackerel and snapper which were by far superior to any others we’ve had at other restaurants.
We did enjoy the meal but have some regret. It didn’t measure up to our expectations except for the nigiri. It was by far great service and the freshest of seafood, however, in hindsight we would have opted for a tasting menu elsewhere or had rather just settled on the sushi omakase for less than half the price of the tasting menu.

Completely worth the money and the one Michelin star.
Really good meal. I sat at the sushi bar and talked to the chefs. They liked me so much that they gave me additional uni.
Ordered otoro, Santa Barbara uni, Hokkaido uni, y’a ago and Anago. Anago is the most outstanding. So beautiful, buttery, creamy and melty. Santa Barbera uni is also amazing. Sweet, flavorful and bursting in the mouth, it gave me foodgasms.
The soba is also interesting to eat. I ordered soba with uni, ikura and caviar. Very strong flavor and tastes amazing.
Will be back with my friends soon! Love it.

Sashimi was amazing. But highlight of this lunch was the cold soba with caviar, salmon roe, and sea urchin. This dish blew my mind! It was full of flavor. The different ingredients’ texture blende well with each other. Would definitely recommend this this place to anyone. You must make a reservation though.
Michelin star well deserved! Oh, and be ready to spend a decent amount of money:)

Ok first this chef Masa has nothing to do with the other chef Masa, whose amazing restaurant has nothing but Omakase yet was still able to attract customers like me who are long time disciples of raw sea creatures. 15 East, on the other hand, was a bit down-​to-​earth given the menu choice; as a result, the price was also more pleasant.
We went with chef’s tasting menu, as suggested. Each course was prepared with care. Egg’s custard was, not surprisingly, my favorite, and grilled duck was also tender and juicy. My friend also liked her fish. The whole process lasted about an hour and half and we both left full and satisfied.
I cannot say this is the best sushi bar in town, given there are many more renown ones around; however 15 East definitely provided a relaxed feeling and I did enjoy the whole presentation, apart from the fantastic taste.

(had to continue my review as an update because I went over the word limit)
To kickstart the nigiri sushi was white fish. It was chewy and light.
Next was kinmedai, which is a golden red snapper, one of my favorites out of the bunch.
Then comes maguro and chutoro. It was great having them side by side to compare the taste and texture. Both were great in their own way. The maguro was soft and tender while the chutoro was chewy and fatty. The maguro was flown in from Mexico and aged for 6 days. This was something new I learned. I always thought omakase was made from the freshest fish but using aged fish was something I never heard of. Least to say, it was delicious.
Next was kohada, this one was a bit on the tougher side. I hardly eat this fish and I’m not a huge fan of silver fish. It was almost hard to swallow down because of it’s brininess. I wish I had told the chefs beforehand because I wasn’t able to truly appreciate this piece. It was beautifully cut though.
Sayori was next. again another difficult fish for me to eat. I never had neddle fish so this was a first. again very briny like Kohada. The texture was more bearable compared to Kohada.
Japanese squid was next and to my relief, whew! The texture was fantastic, slightly briny but the texture redeemed it.
Then comes my ultimate favorite part of the entire meal. UNI TIME because uni live once. (sorry I had to.) It was a huge treat to be able to have uni from Santa Barbara, Maine and Hokkaido all at the same time. Folks, there really is a difference in where it’s from. Hokkaido uni had the sweetest aftertaste and had the softest texture of them all. All 3 pieces of uni left me nearly in tears. Each bite was incredible and my taste buds felt as if they died and went to heaven. I gave a huge thumbs up to the chefs who served it and they were thrilled to see how ecstatic I was from uni. The uni is so good it’ll make you close your eyes and your cheeks will automatically smile without your control.
I was surprised uni wasn’t my final dish and I was served sea eel. Anago has always been my least favorite type of fish when it comes to sushi. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, it wasn’t briny at all compared to most places I’ve tried and I actually enjoyed it.
I was surprised the sea eel wasn’t served before uni since they usually leave the best fish for last, I guess this means sea eel is a higher level than sea urchin?!
Chef Masa threw in a free piece for us before we had our dessert which was baby white shrimp. This piece was amazing. I can’t even imagine how much prep it took to make it! Each piece of shrimp was about 1 mm long, they were so tiny and each piece of nigiri had probably 50 of them to create a big piece!!! I could taste the texture and size of these shrimps. Definitely the most exquisite piece out of the whole meal.
For the final dish, they call it the dessert dish or «sponge bob» one of Chef Masa’s assistant chefs call it that. He was actually the one who made it and they showed us the process and recipe book. The tamago tasted like a fluffy sponge cake, it was the fluffiest tamago I’ve ever had. I’ve never had it like this. I’ve had bad ones that taste like egg cake or just plain eggs but this was so unique especially the lightness of it.
Just when I thought the meal was over, 15 East surprised me with dessert on the house! Chef Masa started singing and dimming the lights which was such a sweet gesture.
I had a sampler plate along with mineoka pudding and sakura mochi, the plate included yuzu macaron, chocolate duo with vanilla bean ice cream.
For a sushi restaurant, the desserts exceeded my expectations. Especially the mineoka pudding. It was one of the best ones I’ve had. The brown sugar mixed in really nicely with the tofu. The chocolate duo was great too, they were so lightly and airy and not too sweet.
All in all, it was an epic meal indeed. I’m shocked that 15 east doesn’t have more Michelin stars, the food is just too good to be just one Michelin star! If you’re here for omakase I recommend not having other plans afterward because the whole meal took over 2 hours. I left feeling satisfied but at the same time wishing I had more omakase experience to truly appreciate every part of the meal. It will be a long time before I eat sushi again, once you go omakase, it’s really hard to go back. Or who knows, maybe I’ll only be eating omakase from now on, wink wink.

I came here for lunch.
I got the sushi omasake for $ 35. It came with 7 sushis and half a roll. The quality of the fish was sub par. Some parts of the salmon was soo chewy. Not good. The eel was way too saucy. The tuna was average. The only good one was the scallop.
My friend got the cold and hot soba. I tried the cold soba. It was tasty and the noodles were al dente but the price just wasn’t worth it. $ 14 for a small tiny bowl of soba. I would need 10 bowls to be full. It tastes good, but nothing spectacular.
I wouldn’t recommend this restaurant. The sushi here is overrated.

**Lunch Review**
**No sushi menu during lunch — only omakase and prix fixe along with the rest of the regular menu**
After seeing 15 East on multiple «top» lists of NYC, my friend and I decided to have our pre-​half marathon lunch here. To my surprise, there was only two other tables occupied in the dining room on a Saturday during lunch… weird.
Décor: classy, simple, modern.
Service: excellent — very attentive staff and informative as well.
We both chose the prix fixe lunch for $ 32 — comes with an appetizer (soup, salad, tofu), entrée (sushi, risotto (½ portion), soba), and chef’s choice of dessert.
For the appetizer, we both chose the seasonal soup which today, was a mountain yam soup with a salted cherry blossom. Served nice and hot, this soup went deep down into the soul on a cold day and the cherry blossom was a nice surprise to my tastebuds. We both agreed it was delicious.
Sushi — 4 pieces nigiri (chef’s choice) and 6 pieces roll. The nigiri we got: tuna, fish from the yellowtail family, salmon, and sweet shrimp (raw). The roll was a yellowtail roll. All were fresh and amazing. They don’t bring out wasabi as it is already in each of the pieces. The rolls were actually really satisfying as it was stuffed full of fish and you could really taste the goodness of each piece. Everything was the perfect temperature. I don’t usually like shrimp, since it’s usually cooked, but this raw shrimp was really nice and caught me by surprise. 1 small thing — pieces of fish on the nigiri were a little skimpy.
Dessert — I forgot what the actual name was, but it was pretty much like a tofu panna cotta surrounded by the most amazing black sugar sauce ever. It wasn’t much of a sight, but the texture was so creamy and the tofu was not too rich. The black sugar sauce was nothing short of amazing. We both really enjoyed this finale to our meal.
Great deal for a nice sushi lunch with great service and offerings. You’ll leave adequately full.

You should sit at the sushi bar like we did for 3 reasons.
1) You might just get to sit next to a celebrity.
2) you get to learn from the chef serving you.
3) you get served your piece of sushi or sashimi at the perfect time and temperature, instead of everything coming out at once.
What a wonderful night! We both opted for the sushi omakase. Then added two pieces of botaneb (spotted shrimp), and two pieces of oh-​toro (fatty tuna). And a lobster uni risotto.
My eyes were bigger than my stomach. And the end of the meal, I was too saturated from tuna and uni richness to fully enjoy the perfectly cooked al dente risotto or the generous oceanic bits of lobster.
No matter. Besides being stuffed like a thanksgiving turkey, it was a perfect meal.
I loved the chefs, especially the head shokunin. Masato Shimuzu didn’t serve us but he chatted with all the customers at the bar.
Randomly, he told us one of the customers was Takashi’s owner.
I was so delighted! I love Takashi!
Another gentleman introduced himself as David.
David Chang? Asked Mr. Takashi.
No, but people mistake me for him!
Highlights:
Spanish mackerel smoked for 2 min with cherry wood. Cooked on the outside with a raw center, this piece was most complex. Delicious hints of smokiness that still let the firm fish flesh shine.
The Botaneb was silky in texture, marinated in soy sauce and had a hint of soy sauce and sesame oil on top. Amazingly sweet and amazing texture.
Hotate– sweet oceanic taste, accented by the grated yuzu.
Anago– warm fluffy flakey eel. The texture of a great omelet.
Hoikkado uni– rich, buttery, deeper sea flavor than Santa Barbara uni, more complex than the other uni. This was my favorite of the two.
Kansaba– sweet and firm. I had an oh! Moment when the Kansaba hit my mouth. Surprisingly great.
I am already planning my next visit.