Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way – Sushi Noz is outrageously expensive. It is $550 per person, which might make it the single most expensive menu in NYC. It is also unquestionably the best sushi I’ve ever had in my life, across NYC and Japan. Part of what makes it feel so discongruous is that the food is very home-y. The soy sauce cured fish is so warm and satisfying, the small plates are direct repackaging of Noz’s childhood (ice cream made from the kind of milk a Japanese kid would drink, seaweed that his mother mails him from his hometown), and all of it served at eye watering prices. Is this the future we’re moving towards, where comfort is only available to the uber rich?
I went with my friend who’s a regular and we were seated with Noz. He was friendly, charming, and overall service was stellar. We chose to skip the pairing and select our own bottles of sake. The somm was happy to let us try anything that was served by the glass and we probably sampled half the menu.
The dishes tend to fall along 2-3 different themes; hyper-seasonal fish, the soy cured style, and a lot of dishes that directly tell Noz’s story and are seemingly drawn from his own life.
The aged fish is different from what you might find at other omakases. The soy flavor is a lot saltier and it feels warmer and homier to me. It also changes the texture a bit, making it firmer. I think notably, I enjoyed the horse mackerel texture much more than usual.
For the more personal dishes, I already mentioned the ice cream and seaweed, but the other one that stood out to me was a light, lemony risotto- almost certainly an italian influence, possibly from his time in new york?
As for the hyper-seasonal fish, you should ask him yourself, I’m probably butchering the story behind each one. We had some river eel that he said he would only serve a few weeks out of the year and I’m like… alright lol.
There’s a pretty clear case for going to Noz – I think it does a phenomenal job of highlighting the sushiyas personality, everything is stellar. But I just don’t think it’s right to put such perfectly nostalgic, heart warming food behind that price tag. I have no problem selling decadence, refinement, opulence at whatever price – sure charge a thousand bucks for caviar tasting, who cares, but this is just a step too far for me. Noz 17 is pretty similar food wise at like half the price.
Highlights
– [ ] The king salmon belly, one of the most perfectly rich and savory bites I’ve ever had.
– [ ] The shirako soup, where heating it somewhat denatured the texture and made the focused flavor a bit more… palatable
lowlights
– [ ] price tag
– [ ] smoked king crab dish where i didn’t really taste the smoke?
by Miserycorde