Yakitori — grilled, skewered chicken tidbits — is the Japanese food of the moment in New York, with new places like Nonono opening at a steady clip. It is usually considered casual pub-style izakaya food, but at Toriko NY, a West Village branch of a collection of restaurants in Tokyo and Osaka, it becomes carefully orchestrated multicourse omakase fare. (For $85, there are starters, 10 courses of yakitori, a final bowl of ramen or rice, and dessert; in a few weeks, there will also be an à la carte menu.) Top quality ingredients like Bo Bo chickens and Miyazaki Wagyu from Japan are used, and there’s a well-designed wine list, mostly French. A counter that seats 19 surrounds the central open kitchen, where affable chefs trim, skewer, grill and season pieces of drumstick, gizzards, chicken breast and the like. There are also about 20 seats at tables on the perimeter of the restaurant, done in honeyed polished wood and stone. The group that has brought Toriko to New York also owns Mifune New York and Sushi Amane here.
This ambitious new Asian-accented restaurant strikes an elegant tone, with bar dining, an open kitchen and a chef’s table on the ground floor, and a garden lounge and main dining room upstairs. Velvety upholstery sets the style for diners, who may opt for raw bar specialties, charcoal-grilled eggplant, Korean-style chicken stew or braised pork belly. Seasonings like gochujang, Sichuan pepper, tart plums and ssamjang, a Korean dipping sauce, are used throughout.
271 Fifth Avenue (29th Street), 646-858-3784, hortusnyc.com.
Jeremy Wladis, who owns a cluster of restaurants on the Upper West Side, is opening this seafood spot, with the chef Juan Carlos Landazuri in charge of preparing the fish and shellfish. The décor is nautical, with Lucite fish hanging from wires. A takeout component next door, Fish on the Fly, will be coming soon. (Opens Wednesday)
269 Columbus Avenue (72nd Street), 212-873-9400, theflyingfishermannyc.com.
Ed Schoenfeld and his partners have opened a branch of their innovative Manhattan-based Chinese restaurant in the Covent Garden area of London, directly across the street from the Royal Opera House. Joe Ng, the chef, dim-sum master and a partner, is overseeing the food, as he does in New York, with the chef Ding Dong Peng running the kitchen. Many of the New York specialties, like the Pac Man dumplings, are on the menu, but Mr. Schoenfeld said that there were also new items, like a grilled and marinated pork chop, and sliders of pork belly and salsa on fresh bao buns.
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