Oceans – Park Avenue South's confident seafood theatre

On the stretch of Park Avenue South where Flatiron meets Gramercy, Oceans occupies the kind of address New Yorkers reserve for an evening that matters. It is the first New York restaurant from Vancouver's Toptable Group, the Canadian hospitality company behind more than three decades of celebrated dining rooms in British Columbia, and it opened here on 20 November 2019 after close to three years of work. The space, once home to the long-running Canastel's, was reimagined by architect David Rockwell into a dining room built around a sushi counter, a lively bar and a raw bar stacked with ice and shellfish. Oceans is selected in the MICHELIN Guide, recommended continuously from 2023 to 2026, and carries a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence and a DIRoNA Award of Excellence besides. The appeal is direct: seafood drawn from the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, sushi cut to order, and a room built for celebration rather than quiet contemplation.

01The room and the setting

The restaurant occupies the former home of Canastel's on Park Avenue South, a site with its own history of deep-pocketed New York dining before Toptable Group transformed it into a seafood destination. Guests can enjoy elegant dining in a contemporary space designed by David Rockwell, with the architect's hand visible in the balance between the soaring bar room up front and the more intimate sushi counter and dining areas behind it.

Four private and semi-private rooms accommodate between ten and fifty guests, built for corporate dinners, client entertaining and milestone celebrations, each paired with its own menu and service style. A terrace adds an outdoor option for warmer months, and counter seating at the raw bar and sushi station lets solo diners and couples watch the kitchen's knife work up close.

02The chef

Executive Chef Andy Kitko began as an apprentice to Chef Sylvain Portay at The Dining Room in San Francisco's Ritz-Carlton, then moved through Michelin-starred kitchens including Café Boulud and Aqua before taking the executive chef title at Cedar, Oyster House and Butcher & Singer in Washington and Philadelphia. He later served as Regional Corporate Chef for the Northeast at One Group, overseeing the STK brand, earning his stripes with iconic dining rooms along the way before arriving at New York's Estiatorio Milos, where he found his focus on seafood cooked with restraint.

Insider tip

Book ahead for the sushi counter; happy hour Sun–Fri 4:30–6pm at the bar.

At Oceans, Kitko treats the kitchen as the restaurant's centre of gravity, building a menu that leans on both local waters and global sourcing, pairing fish and shellfish with seasonal produce from the nearby Union Square Greenmarket rather than heavy sauces or elaborate technique.

03The cooking and what to order

The menu opens with a caviar service, Siberian, Osetra or Grandeur Osetra by the gram, and a sushi and sashimi list running from maguro and hamachi to sea urchin and tuna belly priced by the market. From the raw bar, the ceviche tostada and torched hamachi tsunami show the kitchen's lighter register, while the three-tier Oceans La Tour, stacked with oysters, king crab, lobster and tuna sashimi, is built for a table of several to share.

Among the hot dishes, the Alaskan black cod with sake glaze and yuzu dashi and the Nova Scotia halibut in lemon verbena beurre blanc represent Kitko's calmer, seasonally led style, alongside a daily whole-fish selection of branzino, turbot, dorade and black bass that can be grilled whole or sliced thin as sashimi. For those who want red meat alongside the sea, there is a 6oz filet mignon, a 16oz dry-aged bone-in New York strip, and A5 Japanese wagyu priced by the ounce. The Maryland crab cake with old bay aioli and the charred Spanish octopus with gigante beans are the small plates regulars return for, and the molten chocolate cake with salted caramel closes the meal on a familiar, comforting note.

04Wine and drinks

Oceans backs its seafood with what it calls an award-winning wine program, honoured with Wine Spectator's Award of Excellence every year from 2020 to 2026. The list leans toward whites and champagne built to match raw bar and sushi, while handcrafted cocktails and a dedicated happy hour menu, served Sunday through Friday from 4:30 to 6pm, draw an after-work crowd to the bar before the dining room fills for dinner.

05When to go and booking

The bar opens daily at 4:30pm and the dining room serves dinner nightly from 5pm; happy hour runs Sunday through Friday between 4:30 and 6pm. Given the room's popularity for business dinners and celebrations, booking ahead through the restaurant's own site is worthwhile, particularly for the sushi counter or for groups wanting one of the four private dining spaces.

06The neighbourhood

Oceans sits in Flatiron, just steps from Union Square and the Union Square Greenmarket that supplies some of its seasonal produce. The nearest subway stop is Union Square, served by the 4, 5 and 6, the N, Q, R and W, and the L train, with several lines exiting just a few blocks south of the restaurant, making it an easy stop before or after a Union Square evening.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.