NYCReview
Every day, plane-loads of fish travel thousands of miles across the sky to get to your sashimi platter by dinner time. In New York, countless upscale sushiyas try to outdo each other with claims of higher quality, rarer fish, flown in from fish markets in Japan.
Bar Miller rejects the notion that any worthwhile sushi experience requires that many passport stamps. The sushi restaurant sources nearly all of its ingredients from the United States, and it makes Massachusetts mackerel feel just as luxurious as a Hokkaido scallop. It's the city’s best example of what sushi consumption could look like in the future—and, if you have $250 to spend, it happens to make a very delicious argument.
photo credit: Kate Previte
photo credit: Kate Previte
photo credit: Kate Previte
Bar Miller’s omakase experience is essentially an extension of Rosella, the same team’s first sustainably-minded sushi restaurant about a block away in the East Village. (We reviewed their omakase back when it opened in 2021; now it’s all a la carte.) If you’re familiar with Rosella, think of Bar Miller as its slightly more sophisticated cousin—but only slightly. Eating North Carolina bigeye and edible flowers out of the restaurant’s custom-made earthenware is serious business, but this is no sushi temple.
The sun-kissed room, a simple set-up with a beautiful jade green counter, feels more like a friendly neighborhood bar, where the chefs wear Yankee fitteds and chat up patrons as they chop kimchi and tuna to a gentle Frank Ocean soundtrack. As at most omakase experiences, your server will micromanage you a bit, but he’ll also be washing dishes at the sink on the side. This is very much a laid-back East Village restaurant.
photo credit: Kate Previte
photo credit: Kate Previte
photo credit: Kate Previte
At the eight-person counter, squeezed into a tiny room, conversation just happens. And there’s plenty to talk about over the 12 to 15 courses, which consist of some small dishes—think fishy broths and plump pickled oysters—and a succession of nigiri. There’s shrimp from South Carolina. Uni from Maine. The sushi rice comes from paddies in the Hudson Valley, and the soy sauce is brewed in Connecticut. The best moments are when they lean into the Americana of it all—fluke from Montauk paired with Hudson-made cider, or crushed sunflower seeds on soy-cured Long Island bluefish.
Even as the city’s sushiya count rapidly grows, Bar Miller is currently the only sushi restaurant in the city working with this geographic model. But at no point do they moralize from behind the counter, or even utter the words “carbon footprint.” They don’t need to. By the time we got to the brilliant closer—silky corn ice cream topped with stateside sturgeon caviar—we were practically belting Born In The USA.
Food Rundown
photo credit: Kate Previte
Albacore Fish Chip
This fish chip is made out of bits of leftover fish bound together with starch. It’s sort of like a smokey nori crisp with a tartare on top, and will get you excited for all the sea creatures to come.
photo credit: Kate Previte
Pickled Oyster
Bar Miller usually does some variation on pickled oysters or mussels, and we can see why. Anything pickled is going to get most of its flavor from the vinegar, but add some oyster brine and these meaty little nuggets taste more like pickles to the tenth power. These ones come with a smoked unagi sauce which balances out the puckery sour stuff with some sweetness.
Sunchoke Clam Chowder
The sunchokes add a sharp, nutty base to this riff on clam chowder, made with sweet geoducks. The whole thing is far more subtle and silky than your usual chowder, and coats your spoon like a velvet shawl.
photo credit: Kate Previte
Fatty Tuna w/White Kimchi
This was one of our favorite bites of the evening, and we’ve added it to our rotation whenever we eat a la carte at Rosella. The fatty tuna comes from Massachusetts, and the mild, pickled cabbage compliments it without taking over, like a red kimchi might have.
photo credit: Kate Previte
Fluke and Cider
This fluke comes from Montauk and is served on an apple cider gelée, topped with small, icy chunks of honey apple. It’s paired with a glass of cider that’s made one hour north of New York in the Hudson Valley. Orchard Hill is just one of the local producers on the beverage list, which almost entirely features American wine, sake, and brews.
photo credit: Kate Previte
Corn Ice Cream with Caviar
The fact that they went with something corn-flavored for the last bite felt particularly North American, except that this combination of corn and sugar has nothing to do with the troubling amount of corn syrup we consume on this side of the world. It's an extra luxurious, sweet and salty treat, and it’s become our new favorite dessert to impress dinner guests with as well.
