Odo – New York's Kaiseki Hidden Behind a Bar Called HALL

At 17 West 20th Street in Manhattan's Flatiron District, Odo sits behind HALL, an unmarked cocktail bar: guests check in there before being walked through to a counter at the back of the building. Chef Hiroki Odo opened his eponymous restaurant in December 2018, bringing a contemporary reading of kaiseki, the rule-governed, multi-course Japanese dinner historically tied to the tea ceremony, to a city then still working out how seriously to take it. The restaurant held a single MICHELIN Star from its first year of eligibility before being promoted to Two MICHELIN Stars in 2023, a rank it has now carried for three consecutive years. The kitchen draws on fishermen, butchers and farmers across Japan and the East Coast, and the eight-to-nine-course dinner menu changes daily with the season.

01The room and the setting

HALL is the gateway, not a decoy: it is a working bar in its own right, pouring creative cocktails alongside a wagyu hamburger menu, and it was named among the New York Times' round-up of hidden bars worth seeking out worldwide. Ask the host there and you are shown through to Odo itself: a quiet, counter-only room set apart from the front bar, where seating is limited to the length of the chef's station. Behind the same counter, tucked further still, sits Odo Lounge, a speakeasy within the speakeasy serving Japanese spirits and rare whisky.

02The chef

Hiroki Odo was born in Kagoshima Prefecture, in southern Japan, and trained at Kyoto Wakuden, a kaiseki house founded in 1870, before helping launch Yakumo Saryo, the Tokyo dining and tea house now considered one of the city's most exclusive addresses. He moved to New York in 2012 to run the kitchen at Kajitsu, the city's first restaurant built around authentic Buddhist shōjin cooking, and won a MICHELIN Star there. He went independent in 2018 with his own counter in the Flatiron District, and the New York Times' Pete Wells gave the new restaurant a three-star review within months of its opening. Odo has since built out a small group of related rooms around the same block — HALL, Odo Lounge, THE GALLERY by Odo and, as of February 2026, Odo East Village — all run under the Sky Blue Hospitality banner.

Insider tip

Reservation only, Tuesday to Sunday; book six to eight weeks ahead for dinner.

03The cooking

Kaiseki at Odo keeps the classical architecture — each course defined by a single technique — but the ingredients are pulled from New York's own larder as much as Japan's. The kitchen sources directly from fishermen, butchers and farmers on both sides of the Pacific, and the sequence changes daily rather than settling into a fixed repertoire, built fresh around whatever is at its peak that week. Writers who track the city's wider kaiseki scene note that the two stars rest on precision of sourcing and technique rather than spectacle at the counter.

04What to order

Lunch runs to six courses for $150 a head, seated at 12.00pm or 1.45pm; dinner stretches to eight or nine courses for $270, seated at 6.00pm or 8.30pm. The dinner sequence follows the kaiseki grammar precisely: a sakizuke appetiser to set the tone, otsukuri (assorted sashimi), a warm owan soup, an aemono of dressed seasonal vegetables, a grilled yakimono of fish or meat, a takiawase of separately simmered vegetables, an oshokuji rice course served with miso soup and sides, and a dessert of seasonal fruit or a small sweet to close.

05Wine and drinks

Odo doesn't run a conventional wine list; the house leans toward sake and Japanese spirits instead. Behind the counter, Odo Lounge keeps a backroom built around rare Japanese whisky — a space its own team describes as originally created to thank the regulars who come through Chef Odo's doors, rather than as a public bar. With low light and a small guest list, it encourages the kind of unhurried conversation a whisky deserves, and runs Tuesday to Sunday with last seating at 9.30pm.

06When to go and booking

Odo seats by reservation only, Tuesday to Sunday, with two lunch sittings and two dinner sittings a day. Dinner books out fastest; lunch, run on the same programme, tends to hold space closer to the date, and reviewers recommend booking six to eight weeks ahead for either. The restaurant has been ranked 39th in North America by Opinionated About Dining for two years running, and scored 81 points on La Liste's 2026 table. On the first weekend of most months, Chef Odo also runs SWEETS by Odo, a separate dessert-tasting pop-up that now sells out within minutes of release.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.