Shabushabu Mayumon – the Lower East Side's one-woman wagyu counter

On Division Street, in the seam between Chinatown and the Lower East Side, Shabushabu Mayumon has spent six years turning the Japanese hot-pot ritual of shabu-shabu into a tightly worked counter meal. The restaurant is selected in the MICHELIN Guide, and its own account of itself is unusually candid: for the past six years it served what it calls the world's only omakase-style shabu-shabu, a single chef swishing thin-cut wagyu through broth and finishing each piece in house-made sauce before setting it down in front of the diner. It opened in 2019 as the second shabu-shabu project from the Cocoron team, best known locally for their soba counter nearby, and sits alongside a sister restaurant, Shabushabu Macoron, once described as the only other omakase shabu-shabu room anywhere. This year the format changed: rather than a single guided sequence, Mayumon now runs a DIY-style menu, still built on A5 Miyazaki wagyu but organised into three course tiers a guest chooses and assembles at their own pace.

01The room and the setting

Mayumon occupies a slim storefront on Division Street, close to the corner of Orchard and Pike, in the stretch where Chinatown's produce stalls and Lower East Side cafés overlap. The restaurant is built around counter dining only, air-conditioned and compact, with the kind of close quarters that put every guest within arm's reach of the pot and the person tending it.

The space has never tried to be anything but a working counter: no bar to wait at, no tasting room to linger in before service, just the burners, the broth, and the chef moving between them. Credit cards are the only accepted form of payment — American Express, Mastercard and Visa.

02The chef

The restaurant is run by one woman, Mayu K., who appears on the business's own listings as both manager and the single chef behind the counter. According to the restaurant's own account, she trained in cooking and hospitality for three years before deciding to run the operation herself, and she has been the only face at the pot since Mayumon opened in 2019.

Insider tip

Book ahead via Yelp; closed Mondays and Tuesdays; lunch only on weekends by reservation.

That single-chef model is part of what distinguished Mayumon from the outset: a restaurant review from the year it opened noted there was just one chef on duty, swishing individual bites of meat through broth before dipping them in sauce and plating them herself, a far cry from the communal, self-serve shabu-shabu rooms more common across the city.

03The cooking

For six years the kitchen served only a fixed omakase sequence, and in its first year that menu leaned further afield than most Japanese counters dared: alongside straightforward dashi preparations, reviewers found the chef folding in Spanish-style ajillo, Italian bagna cauda and Vietnamese pho into the sauces and broths offered table-side.

In 2025 the restaurant rebuilt that format from the ground up. Rather than guiding guests through a set order, Mayumon now offers three premium course options and lets diners choose from seven handcrafted sauces, two artisanal cheeses and a new line of house-blended spicy condiments, mixing and pairing at their own pace rather than following the chef's lead bite by bite. A note on the current menu explains that courses built around generous portions of Miyazaki wagyu have had their prices adjusted to reflect recent increases in beef costs tied to import tariffs.

04What to order

The Classic Course ($108) runs through Miyazaki A5 wagyu, Washugyu, filet mignon and Kurobuta pork; the Signature Course ($138) carries a larger share of Washugyu; the Premium Course ($178) drops the filet in favour of a heavier concentration of A5 wagyu, Washugyu and Kurobuta pork belly. Every course arrives with green leaf lettuce, enoki mushroom and tofu, udon and sweet potato noodles, white rice, assorted Japanese pickles, and a finish of matcha or tea.

The sauces are worth lingering over: a deeply matured ponzu, a karajiru-soba dipping sauce, black sesame, basil and tomato sauces, a wagyu gravy, and a mala and chili paste for guests who want heat, alongside shavings of Pecorino Romano and Parmigiano Reggiano to melt into the broth. À la carte, a single slice of A5 Miyazaki wagyu runs $22 (six slices for $120), Washugyu $16 a slice, and Kurobuta pork belly $3 a slice — useful for anyone who wants to build past the set course.

05When to go and booking

Mayumon opens Wednesday to Sunday, 4:30pm to 10:30pm, with last seating at 8:30pm; it is closed Monday and Tuesday. On Saturdays, Sundays and holidays there is a lunch sitting as well, reservation-only, starting at noon. Because a credit card number must be held against every booking, the restaurant takes reservations through Yelp rather than by phone or its own site, though the direct line — (646) 476-7717 — remains listed for questions.

Given the single counter and single chef, tables are limited by nature rather than policy; booking ahead, especially for a dinner sitting, is the safer route.

06The neighbourhood

Division Street sits right on the fault line between Chinatown and the Lower East Side, an area sometimes grouped under the Two Bridges name for its position between the Manhattan and Williamsburg crossings. The nearest subway is East Broadway on the F line, barely a couple of minutes' walk from the restaurant's door, with the B and D at Grand Street a short walk further on.

It's a pocket of the city where decades-old noodle shops, Fuzhou bakeries and newer counter-dining rooms sit within a few blocks of one another — Mayumon's own sister soba restaurant from the Cocoron team among them — making it an easy add-on to an evening spent wandering Chinatown rather than a destination requiring its own special trip.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.