Cuisine:

• Japanese
• Sushi bar

Soto Description:
Some were puzzled when one of the South's top sushi chefs abandoned his flagship in Atlanta for the Big Apple---but after one meal at Soto, those doubts are certain to disappear. Sotohiro Kosugi slipped into a nondescript Village shoebox with lofty aspirations. The space's spare, white-and-beige interior has a blank-canvas feel, so that the focus is right where it should be---on the artistry crossing the plate, and the palate. Like a trompe l'oeil, sea bream steamed with ginger-scallion oil transforms into something meatier, like frogs' legs. And he tosses uni around like Jackson Pollock, using it as a smoky layering between steamed lobster wrapped in lotus root; softly encircling it in thin-sliced squid and a quail egg topping; and puréeing it as a creamy bed for sea eel. Other modernist pieces include hamachi cubes and pine nuts wrapped in white kelp with wasabi roe with a genius side of soy foam, and a pristine, thin-sliced striped jack with the essence of ginger, truffle and soy. Kosugi doesn't forget the classics, though, as the globally-sourced sushi is painstakingly prepared with a touch of homemade soy and a dab of wasabi, the way the masters have done it for centuries. Green tea and mango mochi---rice-flour balls stuffed with ice cream---are the only dessert offerings, so as to not upstage the lingering taste of the dishes that preceded.


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