Wano offers a wide variety of sushi and sashimi along with western ingredients like truffles.
The dramatic space that was until recently Mifune is now Wano, under the same management, Tokyo Restaurant Factory, and now features Japanese fine dining via a kaiseki tasting by chef Ryota Sakaba. It was good to see the company has retained affable general manager Ayana Mazon and beverage director Daniel Eng.
Wano is on the former premises of Mifune under the same ownership.
The restaurant was designed by Katsunori Takeuchi, who fashioned it into two rooms: one, up front, a well-lighted, 11-seat counter, the other a large, high-ceilinged main room done in traditional natural wood. Tables of polished dark wood are of good size to allow spreading out the lovely food, which might be even lovelier if they trained overhead lights or table lamps on it.
Sakaba trained in kaiseki cuisine at Hana and become a “vegetable sommelier,” trained in over 60 types of vegetables, and his expertise shows well at Wano.
A hot pot makes for a good winter dish at Wano.
The menu is long and has many categories, so three of us simply let the chef choose the meal, stipulating that we were most ravenous for sushi and sashimi. But first we began with a warm dish of sea urchin with salmon roe chawanmushi ($15) that was a proper entry to the fried prawn tempura of a fine crisp exterior and moist inside ($25). Miso cod ($40) was as velvety and sweet-fleshed as any I’ve had this year.
It is the distinct flavor of a seafood species that distinguishes its sushi and sashimi at Wano.
Of course, the requisite for good sushi and sashimi is not just its impeccable freshness but that the various species have their own distinct flavor, and on that score Sakaba really delivers. Nigiri sushi included kampachi ($15), the silvery amberjack; salmon ($7) that tasted of the river, not the farm; botan ebi ($12), the soft-shelled Japanese shrimp; ikura salmon roe ($10), Japanese scallops ($12) and more. None tasted like another, and the rice was moist and at the right temperature. We also enjoyed a hefty spicy tuna roll ($15).
Up front Wano has a counter where the chef will do a tasting of the night's specials.
There are many other options, as well as tasting menus, and wagyu beef puts in appearances in both appetizers and hot fishes. There are five fried items, and for main courses abalone (when available), foie gras (unusual) and duck breast.
As is often the case, Japanese desserts lack the creamy enticement of western sweets, and the green tea panna cotta ($12) was bland.
Eng, who is a certified sake master, offers a few cocktails based in Japanese spirits, but he doesn’t stock much in the way of western liquors, so you’re out of luck if you want a Manhattan or a margarita. There are the usual Japanese beers, quite pricey with Suntory Malt Beer (not easy to find everywhere) at $14 a can.
Suntory was quiet when I dined there, happily so, but service went very slowly. Wano is probably better when it’s in full swing and there’s a bigger staff.
I would go back to eat pretty much anything the chef recommends, believing that seasonality and rich flavors make Japanese cuisine as special as it is at Wano.
WANO
245 East 44th Street
New York, NY
917-588-8871
Lunch Tues.-Fri.; dinner Tues.-Sat.
