Former Masa right-hand, Eugeniu Zubco, opened super-luxe restaurant Yūgin, a few weeks ago, a 12-seat omakase counter in the General Motors Building. With the entrance on 59th Street between Madison and Fifth avenues, the restaurant at 767 Fifth Avenue rolls out a 2.5-hour omakase, priced at $475 per person before tax, supplements, and drinks — following a format familiar to the city’s most high-end sushi counters. Yet he is carving his own niche on the 37th floor with skyline views.
Adam Slama
Zubco, 31, from Moldova (known as Yugin) spent ten years at Masa, chef Masa Takayama’s three-Michelin-star restaurant that opened in 2004 and helped set the bar for high-end omakase in the U.S. He started at the wok station. “After a month, Chef took me as his apprentice,” he says. “I didn’t realize it — he was just following me and pointing at everything I did wrong. I thought he hated me.” Training was observational. “You have to watch and understand things yourself,” he says. “After three and a half years, I received my first compliment.”
Zubco’s path before Masa included cooking stints throughout Europe — “France, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Russia, Romania” — and nearly a year in Vietnam, learning wok technique. He arrived in the U.S. on a green card and cooked fried rice for his Masa interview. “I got the job the next day,” he says. He later cooked at Bar Masa, helped open the now-closed Tetsu, and returned to Masa as chef de cuisine. His European travels have shaped his approach to omakase, he says.
Yūgin’s setting features two six-seat counters carved from a 200-year-old hinoki tree and installed by a team from Japan. The courses arrive on antique and custom ceramics — a trend among New York’s high-end restaurants, yet in this case, much of it is made by Zubco himself. The dining room was designed by Juan Santa Cruz — the restaurateur behind the super posh members club, Casa Cruz, on the Upper East Side — and features Central Park views and a Japanese silk screen from the 1800s at the entrance. Though located inside the private club Coco’s at Colette, reservations are open to non-members. Chances are that influencers will be less common here, as the restaurant has a no-phones policy “to encourage diners to be present,” he says.
Ceramics at Yūgin. Adam Slama
Adam Slama
On his website, Zubco frames the restaurant through the Japanese principle of ichigo ichie, the idea that no moment repeats. “No menu is ever the same, and no moment is ever recreated,” he writes. Driving that idea is the principle of Japan’s 72 seasons a year. Zubco says he’s creative with sourcing of ingredients from “auctions and farms only a handful of U.S. restaurants have access to,” for example, the rare A5 Ohmi wagyu, high-grade Wazuma wasabi, and custom Petrossian caviar. He’s also making his own soy sauce and vinegars as well as going his own way as far as wines, with some pairings featuring Burgundy reds rather than more traditional sake first.
An early visitor noted the degree to which Zubco employs European cooking techniques across the 20 or so courses, with a fresh-fish approach from Kyushu, Japan’s south, and little aging, which has become so popular around New York. His strongest moments, early diners say, arrive in the opening progression, where he leans into acidity, texture, and temperature contrast before moving into nigiri served in smaller-than-big American-sized pieces.
Blaine Pennington
The question is whether New York, a city currently home to dozens of high-ticket counters, will recognize and value the differences. Zubco appears aware of the challenge — and he’s well equipped for deep-pocketed sushi aficionados, since he has been trained by one of the world’s most acclaimed chefs. “My dream as a kid was to have my own restaurant,” he says. “It so happened it’s Japanese because that’s what I know best.”
Dinner is served Tuesday through Saturday, with seatings at 5:30 p.m. and 5:45 p.m. as well as 8 p.m. and 8:15 p.m. There’s a 30-minute grace period before reservations are charged in full. Reservations are available on Tock.
Adam Slama