Kappo Masa

Kappo Masa Restaurant Review:

About the restaurant: Kappo Masa sits in the basement of Larry Gagosian's Madison Avenue gallery, a beautiful, minimalist tribute to Japanese restaurants found in Tokyo. You can choose to sit at the sushi bar where chefs orchestrate your meal adjacent to a long row of open cooking stations, or sit on the elevated platform where a small number of tables wait. Keep your eyes open --- celebrities like Mick Jagger have been known to pop up here. The restaurant is sufficiently hidden and expensive to keep out the hoi polloi.

Likes: A feeling of exclusivity comes with dining here.
Dislikes: You will need to take out a second mortgage on your home after your meal.

Food & Drinks: Kappo Masa should be a knockout, the product of two geniuses in their own fields, Larry Gagosian and chef Masayoshi Takayama. But after a gracious greeting by the ladies at the podium, often indifferent service and extreme pricing create an atmosphere where the quality of the food feels secondary. Sushi sets are the way to go to try to have a meal that's reasonably (and we say that with some degree of hesitation) priced. While the quality of the fish and its freshness are quite good, it is no better than other omakase restaurants in the city. The menu is expansive and also includes truffle-inflected dishes and top cuts of Wagyu beef and other Japanese delicacies. All in all, the restaurant is a pretty, celebrity-filled Japanese boîte that deserves your attention just to be seen. Wines by the bottle skew international and are very pricey. Sake by the glass feels more reasonable and more authentic for the meal.