{"id":231756,"date":"2026-05-14T18:44:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T18:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/231756\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T18:44:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T18:44:18","slug":"restaurant-review-odo-east-village","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/231756\/","title":{"rendered":"Restaurant Review: Odo East Village"},"content":{"rendered":"

The durational work of art will always have its day. Jeanne Dielman. Lonesome Dove. Ponderously weighty, they bring their own gravity. The dining universe is no exception. I\u202fhave spent hours upon hours soldered to my chair at the benevolent mercy of the Great Man (often an actual man, though not exclusively) feeding me at Important Length. Day turns to night; night turns to nighter night. Some of the most astonishing meals of my privileged life have transpired this way. So have plenty at which my ass fell asleep and I longed to join it.<\/p>\n

A multicourse tasting can be transcendent or it can, as I\u2019ve written before<\/a>, drown a chef\u2019s talents in too-muchness. I left one recent two-and-a-half hour meal feeling more depleted than restored. It wasn\u2019t just the time spent. These meals have become so voluptuously expensive \u2014 some of the city\u2019s top tasting menus and omakases now command $450 or more a seat before any of the add-ons \u2014 that the pain is no longer incidental; it\u2019s part of the essential flavor.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been heartened lately to see a small counterprogram movement rise: the ancillary \u00e0 la carte. First, Hirohisa, a Michelin-starred kaiseki on Thompson Street, switched its focus from full meals to choose-your-own adventures, recasting itself as Soba Ulala<\/a>, where the pace, length, and selection of the meal is yours to decide, with much the same spate of daily specials and same attention paid. Then there is Hiroki Odo, whose namesake Odo<\/a> serves a traditionally extravagant multi-dish kaiseki that\u2019s been praised as one of the city\u2019s great tasting menus and who opened Odo East Village<\/a> as a kind of fine-dining izakaya with a menu reminiscent of the nine-course original but with the spirit of a jazzy Tokyo bar.<\/p>\n

The pressure\u2019s off; the food isn\u2019t. The space on East 5th Street, with coat pegs on the bare wall in place of bowing-and-scraping attendants whisking away every encumbrance, sets the tone. A friend who joined me recalled soaking the hangovers of youth here in bowls of the former Minca Ramen Factory\u2019s Tokyo tsukemen. Now, with the moderately greater wisdom of age, we sipped shochu highballs, their carbonated sizzle sweetened with thin slices of kumquat, and welcomed complimentary tiny cups of rice porridge with seaweed, ginger, and a fried tangle of baby sardines.<\/p>\n

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\n The menu puts a strong emphasis on a highly seasonal, always-rotating selection of seafood. Hugo Yu.\n <\/p>\n

\n The menu puts a strong emphasis on a highly seasonal, always-rotating selection of seafood. Hugo Yu.\n <\/p>\n

The menu folds out like a map to follow, charting a path from sakizuke (starters, named for their cozy complementarity to sake) to mukozuke (sashimi) and wanmono (soups), through to yakimono (grilled dishes), agemono (fried), and takiawase (simmered), but the actual offerings are so dependent on the seasonally available fish that it\u2019s more a category guide than anything else. For specifics, a small company of three or four servers descend to explain that tonight\u2019s owan \u2014 a golden-brothed soup served in individual lidded bowls for slurping \u2014 comes with fried bream or fried amberjack or that tonight\u2019s grilled fish is Boston mackerel with miso. There\u2019s invariably uni, flown in from Hokkaido, and the season\u2019s new asparagus if you\u2019re lucky.<\/p>\n

Almost all of the cooking is done by one silent, chinstrap-bearded chef (Odo\u2019s deputy, Koji Toyoda) on a single creaky gas burner and a beautiful copper-topped charcoal grill. Ingredients can be humble, like shirauo \u2014 illustratively called icefish in English \u2014 small and scraggly and a happy pairing with a bottle of beer when dusted with bottarga in a deep-fried pile. That\u2019s good enough for me. Dishes start at $9 (a few miso-charged dominoes of cream cheese or some dashi-marinated tomatoes), and most of the menu stays below $20 (I\u202fsaw two dishes marked MP \u2014 \u201cmarket price\u201d). I never found that I missed the hifalutin, a rigor that can shade very quickly into mortis. There was A5 Wagyu steak to order for anyone who wanted it \u2014 grilled rare, the flame of the binchotan charcoal nurtured with a handheld reed fan \u2014 and hairy crab served with golden vinegar jelly and shiso flowers. But there was just as much to appreciate, without the pomp and circumstance, in a stewed bit of tongue, braised in miso and red wine. A bowl of rice with soft-set scrambled egg. Barely churned ice cream, closer to cold cream, delicately flavored with hojicha and studded with walnuts. Even with a lengthy order, drinks, tip, and a bit of the Wagyu, I still left one dinner for two at about half of what I would\u2019ve spent at Odo\u2019s full tasting uptown.<\/p>\n

No doubt I\u2019ll be back to the opera-length kaiseki when the drama of occasion calls for it. But not most nights: I found a brighter spark in this disarticulated version. At some point during my meals, the jazz soundtrack gave way to a Nina Simone song, the great medley from Hair that Simone made her own in the late \u201960s, a thumb in the eye of the haves and a celebration of the free-to-be pleasures of the have-nots. \u201cAin\u2019t got no money,\u201d she rumbles. \u201cAin\u2019t got no class.\u201d Who needs it? Big finish: \u201cI\u2019ve got life!\u200a\u201d<\/p>\n

\n Scratchpad\n <\/p>\n

Odo East Village<\/p>\n

\u00a0536 E. 5th St., nr. Ave. B; odoeastvillage.nyc<\/p>\n

Good for GF
Without any real compromise \u2014 and how often can I say that? \u2014 the entire menu is gluten free.<\/p>\n

Like It? Buy It.
Chef Odo also runs Odo at Home<\/a>, selling much of the same tableware used at the restaurant.<\/p>\n

Drink Up
I wish there were beer on draft, but I have no complaints about Odo\u2019s carefully curated sake list.<\/p>\n

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