odo
Odo is a Michelin 2-star restaurant located in the Flatiron district of Manhattan. It comes from Chef Hiroki Odo, who moved to New York in 2012 and won a Michelin Star as the head chef at Kajitsu. We looked on the Michelin guide, and we saw this was a 2-star restaurant that we haven’t been to yet. We were able to make a reservation for 2 for 6 PM on a Sunday night without issues.
Ambiance & Service
When you walk into the restaurant, you actually have to pass by the bar area. The restaurant door is actually is behind the bar door. Upon entering, the ambiance is very serene and quiet. There was no music being played. In some cases, the atmosphere felt dark and mysterious. The kitchen itself wasn’t super big, and you can see the preparation for most of the dishes.
As expected from a Michelin 2-star restaurant, the service was very good. They did not have wine pairings, and we didn’t opt for their sake pairing. The options for glasses of wine were very limited and were good.
Food
The tasting was $270 per person.
The “Monts Damnes” Sancerre ($29) came from Paul Prieur, France, 2022. The flavor on this was an excellent complement to the light dishes today. It has some nice minerality with a long finish and crisp. It’s one that my partner would want to purchase when we go to the wine store.
The Yuzu Berry ($20) came with seedlip grove, lemon juice, and yuzu berry foam. This was surprisingly very balanced and delicious. It’s a bit pricey, but for a non-alcoholic drink, it’s very good.
The Saizuke was spring noodles to refresh the soul. The dressing was an olive oil dashi vinaigrette. The noodles were layered with shiso, and they decorated a little fava bean with some sesame to hint a frog. The noodles were really good as expected, and this really complements the summer weather well.
The Otsukiri was chef’s selection of sashimi. In the front, there are 2 different cuts of bluefin tuna. The lean cut is served with a light soy sauce. The seared medium fatty tuna sat in the back with fresh wasabi. In the rear cup was skipjack tuna marinated with sake and served with shiso, sesame, and fermented intestines (shuto) of skipjack tuna. This overall was very fresh and clean. The intestines has a peculiar taste to it, where it brought a rich, umami, and deep flavor to the skipjack.
The Owan was a light clear soup with the season’s catch. The meat was a lightly blanched A5 wagyu. The broth was made with dashi and kombu (kelp) and dressed with scallions. The soup was very good and light. It’s definitely going to be bland for some tongues that crave for salt, but I found it to be very flavorful if you focused on it.
The Pinot Noir ($28) came from Joseph Faiveley, Bourgogne, France 2022. This has a balanced texture with round tannins and red fruit forward flavors.
The Hassun was small bites of the spring harvest.
On the right were various fried panko things. There was fried asparagus, a mochi-like wheat cake coated with black sesame, some peppers, and conger eel with a soy reduction. As expected, it was not too oily and somewhat delicate in flavors.
In the middle, there was an a4 wagyu steak (denver cut) marinated in white miso. The wagyu was very tender and flavorful. My partner mentioned it was a little fatty, but I found it fine for me.
On the left, there was a small dish hokkaido scallops with miso and mustard sauce. The scallops were fairly small in size, but the flavors were very decadent, despite the straightforward ingredients.
In the front, there were some marinated edamame. You can tell the shell was lightly marinated with something, but it didn’t do that much for me.
The Yakimono - Shojin was a pair of savory bites with seasonal delicacies. For this month, this was served as plant based bites.
On the left, there was housemade tofu with sunchoke reduction. The tofu was actually very good. It had very good consistency, and the flavors were familiar.
On the right, there was some type of skin with sweet corn puree. This reminded me of a thin omelette with some sweet cream inside.
The Agemono was a lightly fried bite with a bright and clean broth. The fish was an aji (Japanese horse mackerel) that was slightly fried. Underneath was an acidic dashi with a lot of seasoning. They asked that you mix everything together. Funny enough, the diners next to us thought it was a little fishy because they didn’t mix. Aji has a very specific taste, and to some, it’s probably acquired. Nonetheless, the aji mixed with the soup was very good.
The Tsukemono came with salted kelp, pickled daikon, and pickled cucumber. This was to complement our rice course coming up.
The Oshokuji was a clay pot cooked white rice with tsukemono and chilled housemade soba. The rice had drizzled egg and was topped with uni. This style makes it very light and fluffy. On the right, there was panko fried chicken served on top of cold noodles with Japanese style curry broth.
The Kanmi was sweets and wagashi.
On the left, there was housemade milk ice cream served with hojicha cream underneath with a hojicha tuile on top.
On the right, there was a leaf wrapped with soy bean jelly and red beans. This didn’t have much flavor to it for me, though it reminded me of coconut jelly.
The special dessert came with housemade cheesecake with tropical mango sauce. As expected, this was a very soft, light cake complemented well with that mango flavor. It reminded me of the desserts you can buy at most Asian bakeries.
They gave us a hot cup of Hojicha green tea. This had a very nice aroma and was delicious to drink.
Overall Impression
It’s no surprise to me why Odo received two Michelin stars. The flavors are meticulously delicious, though familiar. The competition between other similar kaiseki restaurants in NYC is fierce, so it’s going to come down to personal preference on how this ranks. For us despite the food being delicious here, it’s not high on our favorite list for Michelin restaurants because we’ve eaten this type of food frequently.
Yelp Jabs
I was really hoping for an amazing food experience but with a few tasty exceptions we were unimpressed with Odo. The setting is austere but welcoming, the service is great, the food has great potential but a lack of seasoning resulted in an overall bland meal.
This Elitist might have a heavy salted palette. My partner has a similar palette, and they felt some of the dishes were bland. I described to them that they need to focus on the deep fish flavors.
The entire meal was pretty light and used more food of higher quality to make it flavorful rather than using a bunch of spices and condiments. The only thing I was surprised by was how expensive it was ($150 per person for lunch) for the 6 courses (including dessert)
For this Elitist, the higher quality of the food was probably a large part for why the price was higher than expected.
Revisions
- Jun 15, 2025 - Initial revision.