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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