In 2013, when Daisuke Nakazawa began handing across the counter his first pieces of sea scallop sushi — harmless looking, but the peppery streak of yuzukosho inside could temporarily rearrange your facial structure — Sushi Nakazawa was something new to New York City. I didn’t know it was going to change the sushi landscape when I wrote a four-star review of it a few months after it opened, but I knew it was original and unexpected. I also knew that no other omakase meal lobbed out so many thrilling pieces of sushi, or was quite as entertaining.
Within a year, its name was a metonym for excellence in the art of raw fish. In 2017, the TV series “Billions” used it as the setting for a scene in which a sushi connoisseur upbraids a young moron who is sloshing each piece of nigiri in soy sauce as if he were dunking a mop into a bucket of soapy water. In 2018, a second location opened in the Trump International Hotel in Washington, to predictable wails and moans.
Behind the front door, though, the original restaurant had been changing all along, leaning into its popularity, trying to share its wares with as many people as possible. As a result, Sushi Nakazawa is now more accessible than ever. At the same time, some of the qualities that made it so exciting when it was new have been tossed overboard.
The great inspiration that Mr. Nakazawa and his business partner, Alessandro Borgognone, had at first was to translate an elite Tokyo-style sushi counter in ways suited to an American audience. They didn’t try to make you feel as if you were in a 1,000-year-old Zen temple in Japan.
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Instead of a muted, all-natural palette of wood and stone, Sushi Nakazawa was done in a stark black-and-white, always in style in New York. The counter was white marble, the plates were glazed with a monochromatic drip pattern that recalled Jackson Pollock, and the stools at the counter were swiveling numbers in black leather that suggested a casino, which in fact is where Mr. Borgognone first spotted them.
Mr. Nakazawa put customers who might have felt out of their depth in a hushed, old-school nigiri sanctuary at ease. He was already a minor celebrity from his appearance in the 2011 documentary “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” as the downtrodden apprentice who can’t make a pan of tamago to his boss’s satisfaction. Out on his own, he showed an instinct for the spotlight that the movie barely hinted at. His smile was quick. His laugh was quicker, and was heard every time he successfully startled diners by flicking live shrimp on to their plates.
Some traditionalists found Sushi Nakazawa’s mix of American and Japanese sensibilities off-putting. But it helped introduce Tokyo-style omakase, in which the chef decided what you would eat based on a close reading of the ocean’s seasons and, to some extent, pure whim, to New Yorkers who weren’t necessarily students of Japanese culture. You didn’t need to know that shiny-skinned fish are called hikari-mono, or that kohada come into season in April to enjoy a meal at Sushi Nakazawa. You just sat back and let it happen.
This had a downside, and before long you saw or heard stories of rich young men — they were always young men — acting like the cretin on “Billions.” (These “bromakase” patrons must be the reason Nakazawa’s chefs and servers now warn you at the start of the meal to eat every piece in one bite, and never to top sushi with pickled ginger.)
Before Nakazawa, the best omakase meals were typically served inside restaurants that did most of their trade in à la carte sushi; after Nakazawa, one dedicated omakase parlor after another opened up, and like Nakazawa, many of them were inspired less by Japanese customs than by modern New York stagecraft.
That a 21-piece dinner at the counter cost $150 seemed like a deal even in 2013. Today, dinner at the counter is still $150, and it’s $30 less in the dining room, although there are some new efforts to upsell. As the cost of other omakase meals has gone up to $400 or more, holding the cost steady is an achievement.
It’s even more impressive because some parts of the experience have been upgraded. Originally the front door opened directly into the skinny room that holds the sushi counter. In 2015, Sushi Nakazawa took over the space next door on Commerce Street, and now you enter through a lounge where, if you are early for your reservation, you may bide your time perching on a small beige tuffet or leaning against the bar while putting away a glass of Champagne. If your destination is the dining room, you’ll find that the chairs there have been replaced with cushier ones.
Reservations, which used to be harder to find than West Village street parking, are plentiful now that the restaurant has added lunch service and stays open seven days a week instead of five. This is a net gain for patrons, but it comes at a cost. Mr. Nakazawa can no longer work every shift, as he once did. When he’s absent, it doesn’t much change the dining-room experience. But the counter is far more interesting when he is behind it.
To keep up with the increased traffic, Mr. Nakazawa has made his production line more efficient. Rather than slicing each piece of fish to order, chefs do it before each seating begins. This gives you less to watch, but it speeds up the meal and doesn’t seem to harm the sushi much, with one exception. One of my strongest impressions from the restaurant’s early days is the flavor of the live shrimp — the same ones Mr. Nakazawa liked to launch at unsuspecting customers before killing them, shelling them and laying them over a parcel of warm rice. Each time I ate one, I felt the room spin. The lusterless, pre-killed spot prawns I’ve had there recently were no substitute at all.
I doubt advance slicing was the reason the scallop with yuzukosho on its underside, like a concealed weapon, seemed less vividly seasoned than it used to be. Nor did it have anything to do with what’s happened to the tamago, which used to be a kind of whipped custard with a haunting savory finish and is now more like a blandly sweet yellow spongecake.
Some pieces still took me on a quick thrill ride: the rich golden-eye snapper, or kinmedai, warmed with a torch and sprinkled with sea salt and lemon juice; the creamy Spanish mackerel and the firmer, slightly metallic-tasting horse mackerel; the hay-smoked wild yellowtail that tastes like tuna prosciutto.
There were, however, few surprises or rarities. Spots in the lineup that could have been given to delightful character actors of the sushi stage are taken up by overexposed stars, like the four cuts of tuna and two species of salmon I was served last month. If you want to add something different to the roster, your choices are caviar, Wagyu beef and truffles. It’s become a greatest-hits menu.
I can’t say the changes are a surprise. Sushi Nakazawa’s populism was one of the things I most liked about it from the start. I’m glad that more people can get in now, and that they will be paying more or less what I paid the first time I went. The temptation to angle prices higher and higher out of reach must be a strong one, given how many places in New York seem unable to resist.
Up there in the stratosphere where Sushi Nakazawa’s elite new competitors hold court, there’s a price to be paid, too, in empty seats, eerily hushed dining rooms and customers who don’t seem to think there’s anything odd about having the whole place to themselves.
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