Sushi Noz

Nozomu Abe seats eight at a counter carved from 200-year-old hinoki, a flight below East 78th Street, and the fish flies in from Japan several times a week.3 The guide gives him two MICHELIN stars, and its own booking advice is to watch which dates he is working before you take a seat.

Why go

The inspector calls Abe a meticulous and engaging craftsman and says some of his tools alone are marvels.1 The meal opens on cooked plates before it reaches the nigiri: grilled Norwegian king crab in a sauce mixed with Pacific cod roe, or a Japanese rock oyster with rice vinegar and bonito. Miso soup arrives as the backdrop to eel noodles under salted egg yolk cream and crispy tofu.

Abe built the room in the Sukiya style, in a dozen cedars, with no nail in the joinery, and he keeps the fish in a hinoki ice chest of the kind sushi chefs used before refrigeration.3 The meal runs five or six otsumami, then twelve to fourteen nigiri, then miso soup, tamago and dessert.3 The idea started with his grandfather's seafood company in Hokkaido, which is also where the counter's wood came from.3 4

Order this / avoid

Order: there is one omakase and Abe sets it. The three dishes above are the guide's named highlights, so read them as the shape of the meal and not a standing card.
Watch for: the bluefin jaw. Abe chars it over red-hot binchotan rather than reaching for a blowtorch, which is the difference between smoke and scorch.4
Avoid: letting the bill surprise you. It ran $550 a head in January 2026, and the guide is blunt about it: This craft comes at a price: expect an expensive bill.4 1

What locals & experts say

Ruth Rogers (The River Cafe, London), 2026-05: Sushi Noz, for me, is the best sushi experience in the city. It has two Michelin stars, and the moment you arrive it already feels special because you go downstairs into a beautiful wood-lined room.2 Rogers is also the source for the temple-wood counter and the dozen seats, and this is the room she sends visiting chefs to.
MICHELIN Guide New York: two stars, printed on the guide's own page for this address when I read it on 3 September 2026. The page names no edition year, so 3 September is the date that standing is good for.1
Morgan Carter, reviewing it at five stars for Time Out New York in January 2026, and still asking the honest question about the ticket: Could your $550 be spent just as well at other counters in the city? Yes.4
Hannah Albertine, reviewing it at 8.8 for The Infatuation in January 2022, on the knife work you sit an arm's length from: The chef's cuts are precise, adjusted for the exact curvature of each fish that's taken out of the big wooden box sitting on the counter.8

Good to know

Booking: essential, and the guide says to look for Abe's own dates when you book.
Timing: dinner only, one seating running into the late evening.
Which counter: there are two. The eight-seat Hinoki Counter is the hinoki room, and the six-seat Ash Room is separate, so ask which one you are booking.3
If you are eating alone: the room is near-silent and you are elbow to elbow, so who you sit beside changes the night.8
Standing: the guide's own 2025 New York roster carries the two stars, so that is the edition they belong to.5
The other doors: Noz 17 is a separate seven-seat room under chef Junichi Matsuzaki, and Noz Market sells the same fish faster and cheaper with a hand roll bar for walk-ins. Neither is this counter.6 7

Verdict

must-visit — A blue curtain outside, then a room where the drinks list is long enough to have its own table of contents. Hand it back and let them pour.

Sushi Noz.