![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/22048acc25ef43a90dcf81a31d321021c2-Chefs-Ichimura-Humm-in-the-Studio.rsquare.w700.jpg\")
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\n Eiji Ichimura and Daniel Humm.
\n Photo: Ye Fan\n <\/p>\n
Though he\u2019s had places with his own name on the door, the sushi chef Eiji Ichimura has a habit of sheltering under the wings of his devoted fans. For one of New York\u2019s sushi masters, he hasn\u2019t got much public ego. In the early years of Ichimura\u2019s New York fame, he was an if-you-know-you-know bragging right: During his years at David Bouley\u2019s Brushstroke in the 2010s, in Tribeca, he quietly turned out excellent sushi under such a cloak of quiet that Pete Wells once marveled<\/a> that the \u201cemptiness of the room wasn\u2019t just odd, it was plain wrong.\u201d Brushstroke had been the home of a succession of Tokyo-trained sushi chef instructors \u2014 it was run in collaboration with the Tsuji Culinary Institute in Osaka \u2014 but once Ichimura\u2019s fame was established, it soon became Ichimura at Brushstroke. In 2023, the chef opened his own Sushi Ichimura in Tribeca; that restaurant closed in 2025. Now it feels as if time has turned backward: Ichimura is once again in residence at a big-ticket New York institution, and for what may be the last moment, I\u2019m not sure the world at large has noticed.<\/p>\n Ichimura\u2019s devoted acolytes sure have. At my recent dinner at Ichimura\u2019s open-ended residency at the Studio<\/a>, a nine-seat dining counter above Eleven Madison Park<\/a>, three of my fellow diners professed to have followed the sensei from restaurant to restaurant for years, like shad-sniffing bloodhounds. A meal at Ichimura is in line with the higher end of New York omakase, at $325 a head before \u00e0 la carte additions, drinks, or gratuity, but I got the sense that for these partisans, resistance was futile. \u201cThis is my favorite kohada,\u201d sighed a woman next to me in rapture, referring to Ichimura\u2019s gizzard-shad sushi. The gizzard shad is a herring relative that is sometimes considered a test of a sushi master\u2019s mettle. On its own, the fish is an untasty, blunt-nosed brack dweller. But with proper deboning, vinegaring, and time, it can be a little wonder. Ichimura\u2019s arrives glintingly silver, its flesh slashed like a Lucio Fontana painting, sharp with vinegar, rich and just melting enough.<\/p>\n Ichimura\u2019s is an edomae-style sushi, a callback to sushi\u2019s 19th-century origins, dependent on preservation techniques only available then, primarily marination and kelp-pressing. Edomae puts a particular focus on rice, and Ichimura\u2019s is delicious \u2014 toothsome and piquant. Unlike some of the more narrated omakases around, at Ichimura, don\u2019t expect a lecture. The chef doesn\u2019t say much, though if pressed, he\u2019ll mumble a little description here and there: \u201cVery small,\u201d he explained of a kasugodai (young sea bream) or \u201cNot a baby, this one\u201d of a slice of sawara (Spanish mackerel), a much larger fish. Who needs it? It\u2019s much more satisfying to watch him work, slicing away with a large knife before forming nigiri with such balletic, precisely articulated flexes of finger and palm that you could mistake it for crisp ASL.<\/p>\n An initial plan to accompany Ichimura\u2019s sushi with dishes from Eleven Madison Park, kaiseki style, seems to have been scrapped. Ichimura now provides a few of his own non-sushi options to start and end the meal. His uni monaka \u2014\u00a0cold urchin with caviar sandwiched between two thin mochi wafers (the traditional monaka is sweet with red-bean paste in place of the uni) \u2014\u00a0is a cookie the Girl Scouts could start selling if they ever want to make real money. Dessert is a kind of frozen mandarin parfait, served in its rind. Daniel Humm, EMP\u2019s chef and owner, seems content to offer the drinks and the mood: sake, Japanese whiskey, and, in a mood-elevating touch not often found at the omakase counters of my own experience, a soy-complementing soundtrack of soul from the \u201970s.<\/p>\n \n Sea urchin and caviar inside a mochi wafer. EAT LIKE THE EXPERTS.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Grub Street newsletter.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1858be1620eb504a97745470506cbb9fe0-Clemente-Ichimura-12.rhorizontal.w900.jpg\")
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\n Photo: Jovani Demetrie\n <\/p>\n