Note: This article was originally written on Nov. 29, 2016, and has been updated to include newer information. The information about Chef Masa’s master has also been corrected.
When David Gelb – the director of the salivating chef documentary “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” – was asked at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival where the best sushi in New York City was to be had, his answer was met with surprise and applause. Sushi Yasuda in Midtown East was a candidate, but his pick was 15 East in Union Square.
At that time, the restaurant was a partnership among Marco Moreira, Joann Makovitzky and Masato Shimizu, whose sushi master works alongside the famed Jiro in Tokyo. Both Chef Masa’s master and Jiro shared the same master, whom Chef jokingly dubbed as “Yoda” one Sunday evening in July 2018. (For some background on this lineage and the documentary, Jiro Ono is the head of the world’s only three-starred Michelin restaurant dedicated 100 percent to the raw fish, and the amount of time to get off the wait list at his small Tokyo joint can exceed a year.) Chef Masa quickly earned a Michelin star at age 29, the youngest at the time to do so in New York. Then he got married to a Thai-Japanese wife, relocated to Bangkok and decided to go omakase style in the spirit of Jiro, taking just two dinner seatings of 10 persons at the bar – with a couple of additional shared tables available for up to four diners each – six days a week.
Chef Masa’s arrival to Thailand did not go unnoticed, prompting those running his corporate website to state the following before the January 2016 grand opening:
Dear Valued Guests
Thank you for your interest in dining at Sushi Masato. Due to our limited number of seats, we regret to inform you that our restaurant is fully booked until the end of March. On Tuesday March 1, We will begin to take reservation for April and May.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused and thank you for your understanding.
Sushi Masato Team
By the time I got my act together, I found myself in a futile attempt to get on the waiting list for all of April, May and June 2016 with no bites. So when an 8:30 p.m. slot opened up on a Sunday in July, I grabbed it, not knowing when my next opportunity would arise.
While behind the sushi bar at 15 East, Chef Masa enjoyed chatting with his customers beyond the usual pleasantries, inquiring about cuisine preferences and sprinkling culinary educational tidbits. This personal rapport was evidenced even before seating, when several diners from the previous serving happily posed with the chef for photos. Our own group was equally in the know, with a Japanese couple at the far left end celebrating the woman’s birthday, the patron to my immediate left maintaining a website called ThaiGastronomy.com and related social media accounts, a young Japanese man to my right who travels frequently to Thailand on business, and a quartet of Thais wondering out loud to him in English whether he had been to Chef Naomichi Yasuda’s restaurant in Tokyo. (Like Shimizu, Yasuda also eventually left New York, headed back to Asia and opened his own sushi restaurant that is equally difficult to book.)
Chef Masa deftly switched between Japanese and English to chat with all 10 of us, his cuts of the knives matching that sharp precision. He said that he prefers to change his omakase menu every other month, but discovered a couple of differences between the Thai and American markets. For starters, he cannot source his seafood locally not only due to low quality and quantity, but because Thais would not pay up for such meals if they found out that their fare did not come from, say, Tsukiji Fish Market.
“I remember,” I said, “at 15 East when you gave us a choice of sea urchin. Two of those choices were from Japan but the third was from California.”
Chef Masa seemed pleased that I remembered this from a New York meal consumed about four years earlier. This particular evening, no choice was to be had: all three uni would come from Japan (two from Hokkaido, one from Kyushu). More head scratching resulted from the chef when he added that lighter-colored uni is popular in Thailand, whereas the darker variety rules in Japan. Why was this the case? No one at the table could answer.
Although the name and the lone signage outside the restaurant boast the word “sushi,” the meal starts and ends with anything but. Chef Masa’s aim is to offer more than 20 small dishes during any given seating. On this diner’s first meal at Sushi Masato in July 2016, Chef Masa prepared the following:
- Edamame
- Rock oyster from Aomori – the season for oysters, says Chef Masa, is typically winter, but the varieties he served are available during the summer
- Three types of uni: two from Hokkaido and a seasonal offering from Kyushu
- Eel with shiso flower
- Cherry tomato from the Petchabun province in Thailand (a rare locally-sourced offering, and a clever palate cleanser)
- SUSHI, PART I
- Shima Aji (striped jack fish)
- Squid with rock salt
- Fish from Kyushu topped with liver
- Sardine from Osaka
- Red snapper, slightly seared, from Chiba
- Short neck clam skewer
- SUSHI, PART II
- Tuna
- More tuna
- Shinko (gizzard shad) – three fine pieces
- Larger shinko
- Abalone
- Shrimp
- Eel
- Uni bowl
- Fish head soup
- Minced tuna with semi-seared seaweed
- Sponge cake containing ingredients such as organic chicken egg, mountain yam, and…shrimp
- Yuzu shaved ice palate cleanser
- Tofu dessert with caramel
Dishes in meals consumed in 2018 included:
- Japanese sea bass from Kyoto, also known as suzuki (鱸), served with shiso flowers and ponzu soy sauce
- Dried squid on skewers
- Sea perch (rockfish) sushi, slightly seared
- Kasugo (春子鯛 / Young Sea Bream) sushi
- Corn soup, corn sourced from Hokkaido
Between freshly prepared bites, I asked Chef Masa whether he remembered a list of his favorite Tokyo restaurants that he handed to me from behind the bar at 15 East; I had inquired because one of our reporters at the time was relocating to Japan. He said he did, and that his list – addresses accurate as of 2012 – had not changed.
Chef Masa’s favorite Tokyo restaurants
Sukeroku, 6-22-8 1F Kameido, Kouto-ku (note: this is Masato’s master’s restaurant, hence its listing at the top)
SUSHI
Aoki, 6-7-4 Ginza Takahashi Building 2F
Sushi Sho, 1-11 Yotsuya, Yorindo Building 1F
Umi, 3-2-8 Minami-Aoyama, Minato-ku
Harutaka, 8-5-8 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Kawabata Building 3F
Sawada, 5-9-19 Ginza, MC Building 3F
Miyaha, 2-11-8 Hamamatsu-cho, Minato-ku
Nakahisa, 7-8-4 Roppongi, Minato-ku
Kanesaka, 8-10-3 Ginza Misuzu Building B1
Sushi Taichi, 6-4-13 Ginza, Asaki Building 2F
Sukiyabashi Jiro, 4-2-15 Tsukamoto Building B1F, Ginza
Mizutani, 8-2-10 Ginza Chuo-ku
Kosasa Sushi, 8-6-18 Ginza Chuo-ku
Sushi Saito, 4-2-2-2F, Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo
TEMPURA
Kondo, 5-5-13 Ginza Chuo-ku
Tankou, 3-1 Kagurazaka Shinjuku-ku
KAISEKI
Koju, 8-5-25 Ginza Chuo-ku
Morikawa, 3-21-6 Akasaka, Minato-ku
SOBA
Kanda Yabusoba, 2-10 Kanda Awaji-cho, Chiyoda-ku
Toshian, 5-17-2 Shiroganedai, Minato-ku
Sasuga, 1-19-12 Riken Building B1 Ginza, Chuo-ku
STEAK / TEPPAN-YAKI
Ukaitei, 2-14-6 Akatsuki-cho, Hachijoji
Dons de la Nature, 1-7-6 Ginza
YAKINIKU
Jojoen (Yuugentei), 6-1-24 5F Roppongi, Minato-ku
TOFU
Ukaitei, 4-4-13 Shiba-kouen Minato-ku
ODEN
Otafuku, 1-6 Senzoku Taito-ku
Otako Honten, 2-2-3 Nihonbashi
YAKITORI
Torishige Honten, 2-9-17 Shibashi Minato-ku
UNAGI
Ichinoya, 4-1-6 Nishiazabu Takatsuka Building 1F
ITALIAN
Aso, 29-3 Sarugaku-cho Shibuya-ku
Three satisfying hours later, after I rose to leave, Chef Masa said he hoped to see me again soon, then added with a regretful sigh that he wished diners could just be able to walk in, bypass the whole reservation process and enjoy his food whenever they wanted. But it was way too late for Chef Masa to fulfill that simple wish, with his reputation long preceding the opening of his restaurant. Shortly after my meal, the notice on his website was replaced with the following:
Dear Our Valued Guests
Thank you for your interest in dining at Sushi Masato. We regret to inform you that we are now fully booked throughout 2016. Therefore, we decided to temporary pause the booking process until the end of the year. We will begin to take reservation again for next year 2017 by the end of November or beginning of December 2016.
If you wish to be in our waiting list for this year 2016, please email us at [email protected] with your name, contact number, your preferred date and time(if you have anything specific), and a total number of your party. We will make sure to contact you as soon as the seats become free.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused and thank you for your understanding.
Sushi Masato Team
Sushi Masato is located at 3/22 Soi Sawasdee 1, Sukhumvit 31, Khlongtoei Nua, Wattana, Bangkok 10110, within walking distance of the Phrom Phong BTS station. It is open from Tuesday to Sunday, 17:30-22:00, although note that seatings are timed. For reservations, check availability on tablecheck.com or try your luck on the Chope app. For more information, visit sushimasato.com.
Photos: Sushi Masato – Bangkok, Thailand
all photos by Yuan-Kwan Chan / Meniscus Magazine
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