Teruko
The backbar came out of the Orchid Bar at Tokyo's Hotel Okura, salvaged before the renovations and shipped to a basement under the Hotel Chelsea. Miyazaki wagyu runs $98 for three ounces here, and Molly Fitzpatrick says the red snapper beats it.
Why go
Tadashi Ono cooks and Hideaki Watanabe runs the Edomae sushi counter, in a room that used to be a nightclub.2 The floors are antique limestone and the walls are salvaged wood and indigo-dyed denim. The paintings belonged to Teruko Yokoi, the artist who lived in the hotel and gave the room its name. There are more than three hundred Japanese whiskies, some at four figures an ounce.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the crispy scale red snapper. Fitzpatrick's account:
The scales are left on, and they crisp up into crunchy shards while the flesh remains moist and flaky. The fish comes luxuriating in a pool of thick, bright, and agreeably salty dashi.
1 Then a charred jumbo prawn off the robata, and the uni nigiri. - Avoid: the whole Dover sole unless it is dinner for two and you want nothing else. It is a large fish and it eats the rest of your order.
What locals & experts say
- Molly Fitzpatrick, The Infatuation, 21 July 2025, 7.8: she compares the uni nigiri to marine brown butter. On the kuromitsu jellies she is split and still sends you their way. The colors promise more than the flavors deliver, and she says to order it anyway because it is that stunning.1
- The kitchen on its own signatures:
Smoked and Seared Kampachi with scallion and jalapeño, and Whole Dover Sole Karaage with ponzu.
2
Good to know
- Booking: recommended, and walk-ins are welcome.
- Closed: Sundays.
Verdict
should-visit — Take the bar if you have not booked. It is first come, first served and it carries the whole menu, so this is a rare Chelsea room you can land on a whim. Start on the house highball, four whiskies blended in the kitchen, and work outward.