New York City: Nobu 57 (April 2018)



My spouse and I dined at Nobu 57 for lunch on a Sunday afternoon in mid-April 2018. This location of Nobu is open for lunch and dinner daily. You can make a reservation using the online Open Table system.

Since 2005, Nobu 57 has occupied the first two floors of an office building on (surprise!) West 57th Street (between 6th and 5th Avenues) in the Midtown West/Central Park South. The original Nobu opened in 1994 in Tribeca (modeled after Nobu’s first American restaurant Matsuhisa in Los Angeles). Nobu 57 is the twelfth location of this expansive, world-wide international chain, which includes outposts in Dallas, Honolulu, Houston, Lanai, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Malibu, Miami, Newport Beach, Palo Alto, San Diego, Washington DC, London, the Bahamas, Melbourne, Manila, Beijing, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Perth, Tokyo, Budapest, Ibiza, London, Marbella, Milan, Monte Carlo, Moscow, Montenegro, Mexico City, Capetown, Doha, and Dubai. Nobu also operates hotels in several locations including Las Vegas, Manila, Miami, Palo Alto, Ibiza, London, and Marbella.

The Nobu 57 space is well-outfitted, with a two-story high bar on the first level (previously a ski store) that offers a long drinks bar and low lounge seating, and a grand staircase that leads to table, booth, semi-booth, and sushi counter seating on the expansive second floor. A small alcove near the kitchen service area offers a long table that seats about 8 guests, and a private event room is also available. Bamboo rings set in tiles decorate the walls, and rattan fishing nets cover the windows to create a dark, chic atmosphere.

Chef Nobu Matsuhisa offers a large menu of Japanese cuisine. We started with the grilled shishito peppers and some drinks (a Pepino, a non-alcoholic cocktail made with cucumber, lychee, pineapple and lemon [tasty, but primarily cucumber and not the other flavors] and a Sapporo beer) while we perused the menu. We ordered one sushi sampler, which began with miso soup and a small salad followed by a platter of about 8 pieces of sushi and one spicy tuna roll. We also ordered the prix-fixe lunch menu, which offered a few snacks (nori rice crisps, slow-cooked vegetables, grilled edamame [served atop hominy kernels], two pieces of crudo [yellowtail and tuna], avocado hand roll, mini Nobu taco), followed by a cup of miso soup, a small green salad. My entree choice was white fish lightly fried in tempura batter, garnished with jalapeno, and set in a delicious pool of ponzu sauce made with a sweet amazu Japanese vinegar. For dessert, we shared the blueberry monkfruit panna cotta from the prix-fixe menu, which included creamy vanilla panna cotta layered with fruit foam topped with airy chocolate cake cubes and sprinkled with pistachios – yum!

We enjoyed our brunch at Nobu; we liked sitting at the sushi counter, and both our sushi and the food on the prix-fixe Sunday lunch menu were tasty.






















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