Williamsburg’s Shota Omakase (50 South 3rd St.) opened in August with an 18-course tasting menu. Not only is the sushi excellent, but Shota shines with thoughtful attention to detail throughout the experience.
This thoughtfulness comes from the mild-mannered Chef Cheng Lin, Shota’s executive chef and owner. Chef Lin is a Chinese native who found himself working in a Japanese restaurant in New York in 1997, where he first learned about sushi. “I never thought about sushi and never thought I would become a sushi chef,” he told Greenpointers.
Two years later, Chef Lin came across a manga series titled Shota No Sushi, which started Chef Lin on a journey to make sushi that makes people happy. He told himself that when he owned his own restaurant, he would name it after the book series.
When Chef Lin did open his own place 24 years later, he chose to serve an edomae-style omakase tasting menu. Edomae is a style of sushi that was invented in Tokyo about 200 years ago and now normally refers to sushi that has been aged or cured, which is meticulously done at Shota. “It takes a very long time to prepare our fish,” Chef Lin noted.
You won’t be able to browse the menu before heading to Shota as there is no menu on the website. Chef Lin did this intentionally because he changes the menu every single day based on what is in season and what he can obtain.
What stays the same is the fact that every meal is 18 courses, beginning with 4 small plates, followed by soup, 11 pieces of seasonal nigiri, 1 hand roll, and tamago, a layered egg dish (topped with black truffle at Shota) that serves as dessert.
One highlight of a recent meal at Shota included the third course of seared Spanish mackerel and pickled cucumber sitting in a citrus miso sauce and topped with a Japanese shiso flower. This was followed by a decadent fourth course of dashi soy-marinated fresh salmon roe topped with golden Osetra caviar and fresh wasabi.
Each of the nigiri courses was exceptional and all were lightly brushed with different types of soy sauce. The eleventh course was a deceptively simple piece of prawn nigiri that was cooked for exactly 36 seconds, while the sixteenth course, which was the last piece of nigiri, was rockfish that was seared with a wood fire torch.
Chef Lin hands many of the nigiri courses directly to diners, asking not only that they ingest it immediately, but also that they turn the sushi upside down so that the rice is on top and the fish is on the bottom, to taste the fish first.
When asked which type of fish is his favorite, Chef Lin answered, “That’s very hard. It’s like kids. You can’t chose a favorite. Every single fish is special to me and each has a special flavor.”
Though the menu varies, the quality does not. Chef Lin explained that all of the fish he serves are all premium quality. He cannot assess how fresh the fish are with wholesalers, so instead, he uses a private buyer in Japan, where 90% of the fish is from.
Chef Lin does not only have special relationships with buyers of fish, but also with buyers of rice. “Everything needs to be good, even the rice,” he stated. Shota’s sushi rice, sourced from a small farmer in Japan, is known as “Inochi No Ichi” from the brand Ryu no Hitomi and is 1.5 times larger and sweeter than other common sushi rice. Chef Lin believes that the rice used in sushi is so important that for every three pieces of nigiri, new rice is made. He says that this procedure keeps the rice warm and the vinegar flavor present.
A new feature at Shota is beverage pairing, which just began last week. Every three courses, a new glass of wine or sake is brought over to complement the food. The first glass is typically a champagne, followed by white wine and sake and ending with red wine. Predictably, all drinks served when we visited were of high quality.
Shota’s attention to detail does not stop with the food and drink, but continues throughout the experience as a whole. Dining at Shota feels like being a guest at an intimate dinner party where everything and everyone is focused on your meal and the need for you to enjoy it.
Upon arrival, coats are whisked away and hands are filled with a welcome cocktail comprised of yuzu-flavored sake and sparkling sake. Guests are then shown to their seats, each including a small note from the Shota team and even a place for your phone. Water is constantly refilled, and if a napkin falls, it is promptly replaced.
The room features brighter lighting than a typical fine dining restaurant, presumably because Chef Lin needs to see what he’s doing. The Shota owner deftly cuts and prepares each course in front of patrons as hip hop tracks keep the mood light. As he works, Chef Lin chats with diners, often explaining where the fish comes from or what ingredients he is using. At one point, Chef Lin ground wasabi in front of us, explaining that Shota only uses fresh wasabi. After grinding, he lets it sit for a few minutes, similar to the way wine breathes.
“I want to make sure everyone that comes to the restaurant knows how much we care,” Chef Lin said. “I want people to feel at home at my restaurant. For me, you are not just customers.”
Chef Lin told Greenpointers that he opened his restaurant in Williamsburg because he felt that North Brooklyn lacked the omakase experiences that are prevalent in Manhattan. “There is nothing here that is very premium like there is in the city,” he said. But, there was another, even simpler reason: he likes the neighborhood. Chef Lin has lived in Brooklyn for 15 years and told Greenpointers, “I feel at home here.”