Article by Lewis Woloch | Photos by Alex Lau, Eliot Kimball, and Max Flatow | Published February 27, 2025
Omakase and Authenticity in Brooklyn
Kinjo is not your typical Omakase restaurant. But then again, can the concept of Omakase even fit into the “typical” or “authentic” category? According to Chef Alex Lee, one of the visionaries and co-owners behind the new Brooklyn spot, Kinjo’s menu is not necessarily authentic to traditional Japanese Omakase, or even to sushi. In fact, the innovative blend of dishes he and the other chefs created can’t be boxed into any cuisine label.
In his words, “It’s authentic to us as people.”
Translated into English, the Japanese word “Omakase” means “I’ll leave it up to you.” In 17th-century Japan, the Edo period, customers would go up to sushi counters and say “Omakase” to indicate their desire for the chef to take care of their meal. 400 years later, across the world, the word has become ubiquitous among the food elite of major cities like Los Angeles and New York City, where Japanese gastronomic influence has gained its footing over the past few decades.
Kinjo represents the evolution of not just the omakase tradition, but Asian cuisine in America as a whole. The conceptualization of the restaurant began with Brooklynite entrepreneur David Liu, his wife, Carley, and his neighbor Dan Chiu. They located Kinjo in a pre-war, industrial brick building right near Pebble Beach in Dumbo; as you follow the cobblestone streets away from the throngs of tourists and go through a nondescript black door, the aura of the restaurant is already percolating. Then, upon entry into a cozy, dimly lit bar area, Chef Alex’s influence begins to shine through.
Along with curating two unique playlists (old-school hip-hop near the bar and Japanese pop in the omakase dining room), Alex conceptualized much of the menu with the help of sushi chef and part-owner Johnny Huang and fellow Momofuku alum Chef Eddie Lee. In the lounge/bar area, Chef Eddie’s small plates are served, including a tuna tartare toast and an equally luxurious snow crab dip. Throw in Kinjo’s signature Yuzu Negroni and the low-bumping melody of Biggie Smalls on the sound system, and the lounge offers an immersive experience in and of itself.
If you peek through the series of veiled windows above the lounge’s low, comfortable brown leather couches, the sleek, wooden omakase bar and its adjoining room is visible. This is Chef Johnny’s domain, although Chef Eddie assists him with the omakase prep. All three chefs come from different backgrounds, traditions, and culinary disciplines: Johnny is Indonesian-born, with years of preparing omakase at the highly acclaimed Masa under his belt; Eddie is Korean American and French-trained, and Alex, while sharing in Eddie’s Korean-American heritage and time at Momofuku, spent much of his prior career working in sushi restaurants. Thus, for these three formidable culinary forces, authenticity is less of a tradition-bound, confining trait and more of a malleable, ever-changing characteristic that allows them to work creatively when conceptualizing their dishes.
Take the Mushu Duck, for example. I glimpsed the very beginnings of the brilliant concoction when chatting with Chef Eddie in their small kitchen as he juggled a trio of crepe pans over an induction burner, laying the resulting product on a cutting board. Later, when Chef Johnny served me their signature duck course across the omakase counter, I grasped the scallion-inflected disc of thin pancake and held it like a taco so that the first bite included the crispy, decadent duck, a tinge of pineapple hoisin, and the crepe-like “tortilla”.
The dish is an ode to Peking Duck and Mu Shu preparations, staples of New York City’s Chinese cuisine, while the crepe traces back to French influence. Chef Eddie, when speaking about the dish and others, explained that while working at Kinjo allows for much creative freedom, there are still some boundaries.
“We have to be respectful,” Chef Eddie emphasized, using the example of how the trendiness of Korean food in NYC can allow for the bastardization of a traditional ingredient like kimchi. “It’s easy to make good food, but it’s hard to make it fit into a story.”
Not every dish at Kinjo has a story, but each component prepared in the kitchen is treated with care and respect. This trait can be observed from the twist of Yuzu peel in the Negroni to the delicate finger lime flesh handpicked hours before service to sit atop the King Salmon nigiri. And, of course, the salmon itself is marinated in soy sauce for at least a day, mirroring a traditional aging preparation used in 17th-century Japan to draw out amino acids from the fish.
Chef Alex, echoing sentiments already stated by Chef Eddie, explained one of their primary goals to me in our interview: “We want to make it [the food] as authentic as possible.”
Alex continued to explain how sushi restaurants were already a prominent force in the city and that Kinjo wanted to create its own niche parallel to the Omakase tradition while acknowledging the limitations of such a venture.
“I don’t think in America we have tools to do Omakase…our restaurant is not really Omakase, more Omakase-inspired…something that wasn’t exactly Japanese,” Alex said.
That’s not to say that Chef Johnny doesn’t embody the intimacy of a true Omakase chef with his customers. In fact, he may transcend it. How he lightly torches a piece of wagyu with a deft hand or planes his sharp knife through a caramelized duck breast initiates an intense attachment to your meal, even without a single word being shared.
Color, shape, size, mouth feel, and temperature were all categories that were carefully measured with each course of the omakase experience. The scallop crudo was laid out like a small garden, bright, clean, and composed, with the tender scallop perched alongside thinly sliced honeydew all atop a light mint emulsion. Then there was a smoky, fleshy piece of Mackerel, glazed in a delicious umami sauce and accompanied by the slightest hint of wasabi.
However, one piece of nigiri stood out from the rest: the “Botan Ebi”, which is fortunately available on Kinjo’s Okonomi (sushi by the piece) menu too. Chef Johnny took one of his favorite dishes from Indonesia, shrimp curry, and reinvented it into a sushi counterpart. As we discussed the concept behind the nigiri, Johnny enthusiastically explained how curry itself is a dish that originated in India and then spread to other Asian countries. So, when it comes to making a “curry” that is authentic, there really are no bounds.
Two characteristics of any comforting curry are its large size and deep warmth in flavor and temperature…it doesn’t seem applicable to a singular piece of sushi, right? Well at Kinjo, such restrictions don’t seem to apply. Chef Johnny lightly torched the raw shrimp, nestled on top of a curry-glazed, succulent oval of rice. The slightly sweet, deep curry flavor melded with the crackle of shrimp, transforming my mouth into the curry bowl itself for a split second. I let the shrimp, rice, and curry blend on my tongue and then swallowed, immediately wishing I had a hundred more pieces of nigiri in front of me.
It was just as Johnny said: “We should make something interesting in New York”.
