First class
YŪGIN (Midtown East)
RESTAURANTS • Kodawari
Welcome back to Kodawari, a FOUND feature in which we profile sushi counters practicing kodawari — the uncompromising, relentless pursuit of perfection.
The Skinny: Launched last month in the General Motors building at 59th Street just off Fifth Avenue, YŪGIN is serving one of the city’s most exciting omakases. The work of 10-year Masa vet Eugeniu (Yugin) Zubco, the counter features a refreshingly original, daily-changing menu built on the world’s best ingredients: Japanese seafood, truffles, and caviar.
The Experience: Like many of Japan’s discreet sushi counters, YŪGIN is tucked away, on the building’s 37th floor inside polished members-only club Colette. The intimate room, designed by Zubco and Colette developer Juan Santa Cruz, features two six-seat hinoki counters running parallel, with the chef team working in the center. Framed in warm lacquered gonçalo alves wood that mirror the rest of the club’s signature gleam, two broad windows look out to city views. The experience doesn’t feel entirely dissimilar from a first-class Emirates flight. Service is poised and intuitive, and Zubco is wholly engaging.
House Manners: None of note, other than looking good — this is a well-dressed, well-groomed crowd.
The Progression: Zubco departs from rigid Edomae tradition, instead embracing the subtler Kyushu sushi style, while threading in European ingredients and French technique. He promises to never serve the same menu twice and sometimes change dishes shortly before service.
Several of the most distinctive and delicious courses in the omakase appear early on: kegani (hairy crab) from Hokkaido served over a ginger-perfumed salad of julienned romaine with airy shards of fried potato; an utterly perfect Hokkaido scallop Wellington layered with leeks, maitake, and chanterelle mushrooms in a silken wakame seaweed sauce; and a two-part Ōmi wagyu series as an optional $125 supplement — first, the eye of a ribeye, sitting in a pool of concentrated sweet wagyu jus flavored with black garlic and black onion, finished with white truffle; next, the cap, braised in garlic soy sauce, crowned with uni and freshly grated wasabi.
An interlude marks the shift from the kaiseki portion to the sushi that follows: a softly sweet sorbet of Korean pear and orange mint blended with textural mint crystals.
Most New Yorkers are well acquainted with the ubiquitous Edomae-style sushi counters, a tradition rooted in curing and aging seafood to develop umami and depth. Zubco’s embrace of Kyushu style prioritizes unaged, fresh seafood and white fish, yielding bites with a softer texture and overall more delicate flavor. (His nigiri are also more petite in size, too.)
The 12-bite progression begins with lighter fish and moves into shellfish, then deeper flavors such as toro, anago, and uni. There’s rich, slippery amaebi (sweet shrimp), engawa (fluke fin), and kinmedai (goldeneye snapper), the latter two of which Zubco briefly touches with a heated blade to gently sear the fish and coax out its natural richness.
A two-part scallop series follows: first, silver-dollar-sized Hokkaido scallops lightly grilled over binchotan charcoal, then wrapped in nori and dusted with an umami-laced powder of scallop liver, wasabi, and soy before the bite is handed directly to the guest. The second features Nantucket scallops (the night’s only non-Japanese seafood), plump as mini marshmallows, nestled atop warm rice.
The nigiri progression closes with a crisp monaka wafer filled with buttery toro and a giant mountain of golden ossetra caviar. The final savory note, a kanpyo maki (dried, marinated gourd roll) presented in a shallow pool of buttery Tunisian olive oil is surprising and harmonious, the sweet, lean vegetable taking on a balanced richness.
To finish, a course of seasonal fruit: three varieties of melon sourced from both Japan and the U.S. — a statement that America’s fruit can rival Japan’s best — alongside Korean Shine Muscat grapes, slightly larger than quail eggs.
The Verdict: That Zubco doesn’t follow the traditional sushi playbook doesn’t render his omakase any less masterful than more traditional counters — far from it, as it’s the freedom to color outside the lines (with touches of French pastry and a drizzle of olive oil, for instance) that makes his menu all the more compelling. –Kat Odell
→ YŪGIN (Midtown East) • 767 Fifth Ave, 37th fl • ~20 courses, $475 per • Reserve.