At Masa, the $950 Counter Makes the Seat Part of the Splurge

NEW YORK — The first expensive choice at Masa arrives before the fish. The restaurant’s current menu puts its Hinoki Counter experience at $950 a person and table omakase at $750. For two people, choosing the counter adds $400 before beverages, tax or an optional gratuity. At this level, where you sit is a meaningful part of what you buy.

Both experiences belong to Masayoshi Takayama’s restaurant on the fourth floor of the Shops at Columbus Circle. The distinction is personal proximity: a sushi chef guides the counter meal, while a service-team member guides the table experience. The advertised progression moves through five or six small appetizers and 15 to 17 pieces of sushi before seasonal fruit. The kitchen retains control over the sequence, which follows availability rather than a diner’s checklist.

That makes the counter premium unusually clear. The higher price buys a different relationship to the preparation and presentation, though it does not promise that Takayama himself will serve every guest. Readers looking for the chef by name should confirm that separately. The restaurant’s own wording describes one of its sushi chefs, not a guaranteed audience with its founder.

The table-to-counter difference amounts to almost 27 percent of the table menu’s price. That is a substantial premium for the setting of a meal, and a revealing one. A menu can itemize its ingredients; a restaurant has more difficulty putting a number on attention, anticipation and access. Masa’s two formats make some of that normally invisible pricing visible.

The food remains central to the proposition. The official collection shows uni custard, sushi and sweetcorn tempura with truffle: recognizable ingredients presented with considerable restraint. Those photographs establish a visual vocabulary rather than a fixed order sheet. They also suggest why a quiet counter can function as a luxury setting without the more conspicuous theater of a dining room built around spectacle.

The restaurant also separates the beverage decision from dinner. Pairings are available on request; corkage is $300 per bottle, with a two-bottle limit and restrictions on bottles already on its list. A couple bringing one permitted bottle would therefore reach a $2,200 food-and-corkage subtotal at the counter, before tax, optional gratuity and the cost of the bottle itself. That is arithmetic, not a quoted final bill.

An archival Eater film offers a useful glimpse of Takayama’s approach to fish and counter service. It dates from 2015, well before the current pricing, and should be watched as context rather than a preview of tonight’s ingredients. Its historical three-star wording also belongs to that period.

The strongest reason to pay the counter premium is a genuine interest in the work happening inches away. The striking feature of the price is how explicitly it values that proximity: $200 per person, regardless of the later beverage decision. For diners fascinated by the preparation, the distinction has a clear logic. For everyone else, the table option reveals how much of the luxury proposition belongs to the seat itself.

Prices are US dollars, checked November 11, 2026. No reservation or date-specific availability was confirmed. This is reported analysis, not a firsthand dining review.