Yamada

Isao Yamada trained at Kitcho in Kyoto, ran his own kaiseki restaurant in Fukuoka, and came to New York at David Bouley's invitation to lead Brushstroke. After Brushstroke and a later Midtown counter of his own both closed, he opened this quiet counter in Chinatown in April 2025, and by November MICHELIN had given it a star.

Kaiseki is the formal, seasonal Japanese tasting meal, and Yamada's changes as often as every other week. The signatures are a chawanmushi and, toward the end, rice cooked in a donabe — in spring with king crab and ramps, at other times with lobster and maitake. Some of the shochu comes from Fukada, a brewery more than three centuries old.