This article ran while a good friend was vacationing in Kyoto. I sent it to him to get him to visit Kikunoi while he was there, while putting Shoji on my short list for visiting when I got back to NYC. I finally made it there tonight and it was one of those seriously horizon-expanding experiences. Every bite of every dish was of the finest calibre, and my husband, who has been leery of both uni and eel, waxed rhapsodic about the two courses of uni and the anago that was served. A huge part of the experience is the opportunity to watch chef Wilcox prepare the courses and discuss the ingredients, but that was icing on the cake as the spectacular courses and flawless service stood on their own to make a dinner without equal. Arigatō gozaimasu, chef!
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Just dined at Shoji; 2.5 hours sitting at a counter and being fed by a Sushi Chef was/is an experience.
3 stars? No. Maybe 2 stars compared to other sushi places but I’d rather spend my $600 on a variety of food like EMP (yes I’ve been there and it’s amazing)
I dine a lot in nyc. Maybe I’m jaded but 3 stars???? for ....
1. Counter seats that are not comfortable for 2.5 hours of eating one piece of fish at a time or any food.
2. Why don’t Japanese restaurants have any vegetables at all?
3. Pace is very very very slow for first 45 minutes ...
4. Then it’s a bit faster
5. Fish is fish ...it’s the texture that makes a difference, the way it’s sliced and quality and what is brushed in it so after awhile it’s “oh it’s fish”
6. Atmosphere very zen with jazz music.
7. It’s expensive
8. Yes it’s one master sushi chef slicing each piece just for you(and 13 others ) so yes it’s impressive but still
Not 3 stars and very pricey.
What's a "beverage interception"? Is that when someone spills a drink on you?
Love the ceramics.
I've had the unbelievably fortunate privilege of experiencing some of the finest kaiseki in Japan and what allegedly is the aforementioned in the USA which is nearly impossible to find in NYC or LA. One would never leave hungry- quite unable to eat more is more like it- yet after 2 weeks of what felt like overindulgent eating-including japanese breakfasts with sushi etc, ramen whenever we saw something interesting during the day....I came back slimmer and healthier- and was never hungry! Perhaps american chefs have interpreted Kaiseki as nouvelle cuisine. In japan the portions were small but not one bite. Recently had friends go to the renowned NNaka in West LA and report that everything was one bite and they went for pizza afterward. What the..!
This restaurant is definitely empty for a reason, but what exactly is that reason?
Perhaps the question is answered in the photograph of a 2 & 1/2 inch piece of grilled stripped bass resting next to one yellow cherry tomato cut in half and only half of a red cherry tomato.
That's not a serving of fish, it's a food concept that is so minimalistic, it needs to be treated as satire. Not only that, the plating doesn't even look interesting.
At a local supermarket yesterday, I bought a pint of homegrown, end-of-season, mixed red and yellow cherry tomatoes for $2.99 and two six-inch filets, about 12-ounces, of local, fresh stripped bass for 25.95.
I quick-cooked the tomatoes on my stove's flat-top griddle. I cooked the fish in a Le Creuset grill pan. The seasoning at the table was organic Wan Ja Shan tamari sauce. The bottle cost $4.50 at a local Asian mega-supermarket.
Halving the cherry tomatoes (the only prep needed) and cooking them and the fish, and then setting the table (local artisan-made stoneware plates) took a total of only 20-minutes.
My husband and I had much more than 1 and a half pieces of cherry tomato and a lot more fish than what I saw in the photo.
I think I've answered my question.
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@Carmela Sanford That's one course. Out of 20. By your calculations, your food cost would have been $7 for that one course. Multiply that by 20, and you get $140, which I think is an overestimate, but typically restaurants aim for a food cost of 30% off their menu price, 30% for labor, 30% for rent, and 10% profit. Labor will be a lot lower here, so he does have room for profit.
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@Steven M. You completely missed the point of my comment. I wasn't writing about the restaurant's costs. My point is that the plate in the photo was duplicated at home with minimal effort. Why does anybody need to go there to eat that dish, even if it is only one course?
I do recognize that chefs bristle at the idea that their dishes can be duplicated at home, but the fact is that it's relatively easy to do. And I did it and ate more food than on the restaurant's plate.
In fact, today at Whole Foods, I saw that cherry tomatoes (red and yellow) were $2.99 a pound. Mix the colors as you want.
That specific dish at Shoji is cherry tomatoes and a bit of fish. Hardly special. Hardly creative. Hardly hard work. Hardly a new idea.
I posited that this is the reason the restaurant is empty. I don't think I'm wrong.
@Carmela Sanford have you tried a fresh peach from the union square market during its peak and then had a peach from fairway or Whole Foods? They are not even from the same planet as far as taste. So I am assuming that is one of the selling points of eating in a place which can source better than someone who hits the chain market— amazing raw ingredients.
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Still trying to wrap my thoughts around a food critic who gives gravitas to bluefin that '[have] been caught from health stocks'.
Sustainability is something we all need to be on board about. Not just Pete's review on a restaurant somewhere in NYC.
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@JohnnyBoy Very true. There is no such thing as "healthy stocks of bluefin". Bluefin are highly migratory fish and can be in Ireland then Spain and the US all in the same year. All bluefin stocks are critically low with some of the Atlantic stocks being below 5% of historical natural levels (i.e. before 1970). Surprising someone of @PeteWells stature would promote this fallacy.
"Set menus at $190, $252 and $295, service included." End of story for the 99% of us. Then again New York City is full of the 1%. So no problem here.
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<There should be no empty seats...>
Hey, I'm game. You buy, I'll fly.
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Nice, kindly worded review.
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Paying up to $295 for a series of dishes that look like they've been put together with tweezers is outrageous, irrespective of how good it tastes!
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@ BSB Princeton
I agree with you in principle because I probably have a plebeian attitude towards restaurant food. But, for those who crave, and yearn for, a novel gastronomic experience, the price should not be a problem.
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Would you feel the same way about paying for front row seats at your favorite musician's concert or at a sporting event? @BSB
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Let's celebrate the line (and get it right): "..the guy she told you not to worry about"
This is easily its best use in pop culture, and goes straight into the Pete highlight reel..
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Too bad it's priced for Bitcoin speculators and the hedge fund crowd.
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I'm neither, but the fine dining experiences I've had, are my memory for so many years and yes, it's always been worth the price..
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I'm not going to entirely blame the food critic for his review of this restaurant. I'm aware of the trend in Japanese food that has taken hold in NYC. I'm also aware that Kyoto-style Kaiseki cuisine is defined by a series of small portions of various seasonal and local products, presented with minute attention to detail but often barely satisfying the diner's palette. It does seem that the chef of this restaurant has studied Japanese cuisine well. However, I'm so over hearing about this type of place, minimal and terribly expensive and, ultimately as I see it, unsatisfying in it's chilliness, that I hope the time is fast approaching when other more COMFORTING types of restaurants replace these gastronomic outposts of esoterica. The news today is foreboding enough - I for one don't need to extend that to my dinnertime. Comforting home cooking at a price that most can afford is what I seek.
On a side note, would it be unseemly to mention that I can't recall The Times ever having had the same food critic for so many years. Mimi Sheraton held the post 8 years and I believe Mr. Wells has tied if not surpassed that hallmark. Time to freshen up the team?
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@ManhattanWilliam
Palate.
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You don't have "comforting home cooking" restaurants in New York?
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@ManhattanWilliam Pete started in 2012. That's 6 years.
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Those dishes looked amazing, but I suspect I'd leave the restaurant still feeling hungry.
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so much for any empty seats. question is, how easily can he hadle a full counter??
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@fernando
Having had the pleasure of dining at Shoji, I can assure you that the chef is a master of his craft...a consummate professional who will serve one or twelve with the same level of attention to both the patron as the dish.
The experience was sublime.
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Not sure why the restaurant didn't get four stars. Best piece of octopus, wouldn't want striped bass prepared any other way, spectacular sushi, delectable corn soup, Bluefin like "the guy she told you about." Every course seemed delightful, not a word of criticism which usually never fails to greet at least one dish at other restaurants. All served with a chance to personally interact with someone with an exquisite knowledge of Japanese food and its history.
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Probably because the service was perfunctory.
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@JF The service will always be perfunctory at a restaurant like this. Sushi Nakazawa had perfunctory service and still got four stars. Pete said here he was glad he wasn't distracted from the meal. His point was that the bill was service-included and that quantity (not quality) of service wouldn't really have warranted a 20% tip anyway.
Mr. Wells,
Kikunoi in Kyoto is very well known in Japan, and I had thought world-renowned. Saying "...cooked at a kaiseki restaurant in Kyoto called Kikunoi" indicates a lack of background and poor journalism to me.
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@Jason Cha
Maybe Mr. Wells isn't a food snob. I lived in Japan for 5 years and had never heard of Kikunoi.
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@Jason Cha Wow, Jason, a whole bunch of us don't know of Kikunoi, so the note is actually quite informative.
Surely you won't begrudge a reporter providing information many of his readers didn't know before? Also: get some manners--impugning his background is totally uncalled for.
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@Todd
My critique is that Wells needed to provide more information, as a service to English-speaking readers who likely don't know the pedigree of the institution that Wilcox trained at.
The sentence, as written, is not unlike a Japanese reporter for a Japanese newspaper writing about some new steakhouse in Tokyo, where the Japanese chef had "cooked at a steakhouse restaurant in New York called Peter Luger".
A simple adjective (e.g., "award-winning" or "one of Japan's most recognized") would have provided a taste of background to the NYT reader that reflects journalism, as opposed to a simple review.
A fantastic article about a fantastic chef. I assume that Mr. Wilcox serves complete 会席 kaiseki, not the simplified 懐石 cha-kaiseki.
The special knife for chopping the fine bones of a conger eel is an invention of greatness next to the two samurai swords, a long and short.
In Slide 4, if Mr. Wilcox does not wish to wear a Western-style chef's white toque, he might consider a traditional Japanese head-cover.
I envy the New Yorkers who are within a stone's throw from Shoji.
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@Tuvw Xyz it's not a complete kaiseki - it's 6-7 kappo dishes and then sushi.
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