Noz 17 – the Michelin star that got radically more affordable

On a quiet stretch of West 17th Street in Chelsea, behind an unmarked door, a seven-seat counter cut from Hinoki wood holds one of New York sushi's sharper reversals: a MICHELIN-starred omakase that, since the summer of 2025, costs a fraction of what the city's grand counters charge. Noz 17 opened in December 2021 as the downtown, more exploratory sibling of Sushi Noz, the Upper East Side room run by Chef Nozomu Abe and partners David and Joshua Foulquier. Where the flagship is reverent and strictly traditional, Noz 17 has always felt looser, a sushi-ya built for a chef to experiment night after night. That chef is Junichi Matsuzaki, known to regulars as Matsu-san, who has run the room since it opened. It holds One MICHELIN Star, awarded for an omakase that keeps the group's sourcing discipline intact while dropping almost all of its intimidation.

01The room and the setting

The dining room is built in the Sukiya style, the restrained, tea-house architecture of old Kyoto, and it is deliberately the opposite of Chelsea's usual glass and concrete. Cedar-scented Hinoki panels line the walls and soften the acoustics; lighting is kept low and warm rather than theatrical, so the seven-seat Hinoki counter stays the only real focal point in the room.

Noz 17 runs two distinct counters rather than one. The Sukiya-style room is designed to feel like a traditional sushi-ya, calm and stripped back, with two counters, including a four-seat counter billed as one of the smallest omakase counters in New York City. There is also a private dining room for up to four guests, tucked away from the main counters for smaller, closed-door seatings.

02The chef

Junichi Matsuzaki was born in Chiba, where his introduction to the trade came sideways: his father repaired commercial refrigerators for fishmongers and restaurants, and took his son along on the job. Matsuzaki moved to New York in 2002 and began his career as an apprentice at Sushi Yasuda, one of the city's formative Edomae counters.

Insider tip

Book ahead; only 11 seats across two counters each night.

In 2018 he joined the opening team at Sushi Noz as second-in-command to Chef Nozomu Abe, running what became known as the Ash Room counter before the group chose him to lead its second project. Chef Junichi Matsuzaki, previously of Sushi Noz's Ash Room, leads the kitchen at Noz 17 and has received a Michelin star. He is behind the main counter most nights, stepping aside only on Saturdays, when one of the house's senior sushi chefs takes over service.

03The cooking

For its first three and a half years, Noz 17 ran a long, improvisational tasting menu in the alternating otsumami-and-nigiri format the Noz group is known for, priced well into the hundreds of dollars. That changed in the middle of 2025.

The sourcing hasn't changed, only the shape of the meal. This is not a downgrade — Chef Matsuzaki is still working with the same pristine seasonal Japanese seafood, he has simply streamlined the experience.

04What to order

The Bar Menu, served at the main counter, begins with an amuse bouche and moves through twelve seasonal nigiri, finishing with Chef Matsu's own miso soup, tamago and a seasonal dessert, fifteen courses in total built around fish flown in from Japan each day. On the Michelin-documented version of the menu, that amuse has taken the form of a savoury parfait layered with kiwi, mozuku seaweed and tomato: a small starter like a savory parfait layered with kiwi, slippery mozuku seaweed and tomato, topped with tomato water, before launching into eleven pieces of sushi, miso soup and tamago.

At the four-seat counter, the Bar Menu is presented nightly by one of the house's principal sushi chefs rather than Matsuzaki himself, except on Wednesdays, when the two counters swap and he moves to the smaller room.

05When to go and booking

With only seven seats at the main counter and four at the second, Noz 17 is a genuinely small restaurant, and reservations are handled online through its booking system or by phone and email well ahead of a visit. The restaurant takes credit and debit cards and keeps the room air-conditioned; pets are not permitted inside.

Go on a weeknight if the point is Matsuzaki's own hands at the Hinoki counter, since Saturdays bring in a different chef; go on a Wednesday for the reverse, if the smaller four-seat room is the draw.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.