Just when we thought fine dining was dead, along comes the small-capacity, budget-busting omakase house to resuscitate the experience for the 1-percenters and live-to-eaters. There’s now a glut of high-dollar chef’s tasting counters in this city, each jockeying for multicourse supremacy — and Ômo by Jônt, Ryan Ratino’s 16-seat offshoot of his two-Michelin-star Jônt in Washington, D.C., may very well reign supreme.
Here, elite ingredients and indulgences like highly marbled Hida wagyu from Gifu and Kobe Wine Beef from Hyogo, or wild scallops, kinki and nanatsuboshi rice from Hokkaido are a given. Iberico lardo? Sí, señor. Want your Mont Blanc sweetened with Murasaki potatoes and Japanese chestnuts? Oui, chef. Care to luxuriate in sea urchin from the Rishiri Islands? Easy-peasy Japanesey. But as unparalleled as Ratino’s and co-chefs de cuisine Jackson Morrow’s and Mike Commins’ dishes are, the service aims for the highest reaches of hospitality. A Google-searched dossier on every paying guest ensures a small snippet of your life is impressively peppered into the course of the three- or four-hour affair.
“I’m experiencing the movie The Menu,” my pal half-jokes. “I hope the chef doesn’t hate marshmallows.” If any patrons were harmed during the making of this meal, it wasn’t through immolation but, rather, immoderation. Opt for the $375 “Jaunt” experience and its 20-plus dishes and you’ll know what I mean. In fact, the introduction of tiered tasting menu options last month was a prudent ploy. At $145, the “Excursion” menu allows trepidatious diners to relish four snacks, four savory courses, a plated dessert and the “Magic Box” ending comprising madeleines and a variety of mignardises without spending a small fortune. The $195 “Journey” ups it to five savory courses and two plated desserts.
Since Ômo, a name inspired by the Japanese ethos of omotenashi or “hospitality,” opened back in March, I’ve dined here three times. What can I say? I’m a live-to-eater. The tiered menus weren’t available the first two times, so this little piggy went to town. In the “Living Room,” where guests chatted and mingled and the Krug flowed as freely as the Marne River in Champagne, a taste (or five) of things to come commenced amid a mid-mod lair of Japanese minimalism. Preened and titivated one-biters came in the form of brioche doughnuts with pineapple jam and miso-marinated foie gras gussied up with kinome leaves; a Hitachino White Ale croustade holding A5 wagyu tartare, hay-smoked chutoro dressed with hand-harvested gamtae seaweed and dashi vinegar; and a nori crisp of citrus-cured shima aji, Fresno chili, pickled ginger and pickled daikon — to name but a few.
“That bite just wouldn’t stop performing on my tongue,” said the pal about the nori crisp, but the remark was true about most everything served here, particularly at the “Savory Counter,” where a team of white-jacketed cooks worked in remarkable silence to prep more substantial presentations, like the world’s best sea urchin lodged in a custardy pool of the most incredible sweet corn chawanmushi. The pal buried his head in a bowl of nanatsuboshi rice with king crab flavored with kani “miso” (it’s actually a crab paste), cultured butter and a heap of shaved Perigord black truffles. When he eventually came up for air, I was halfway through an intermezzo of segmented cara cara, grapefruit and blood oranges slicked in a citrus dashi with sesame. “It takes an hour to shingle that citrus,” Ratino says, and we can’t help but shake our heads at how good this palate-cleanser is.
And on it goes — dry-aged amadai from Nagasaki in a charred onion soubise served with buttermilk broken with herb oils; A5 wagyu sauced tableside with glazed cherries and cherry mustard; Quebec porcelet fried in panko with comté cheese and a dip of miso barbecue sauce. Bite after bite after bite of singular ingredients with foreign-phrased preparations, followed by swigs of superb sake and wine curated by sommelier Juan Valencia, and we’re left wondering how desserts will work their way into our swollen guts. But they do, be it the yuzu-mango lemonade bomb, black sesame kakigori, sweet potato Mont Blanc or the Crown Melon, considered Japan’s King of Fruits and available here for $30 a slice. I won’t say much about the treat-filled Magic Box presented at the end of the meal, only that it, too, impresses.
It all makes for an excessive night out, which is why I like the tiered options. After the $195 “Journey” on my last visit, I left feeling a lot more buoyant. But let’s be honest — all these chef’s tasting concepts that have sprung up about town have been motivated by the promise of Michelin stars, however tarnished and diluted those may be. Ômo isn’t flawless by any means, but they’ve been quick to rectify anomalies in dishes and service, and I’m sure they’ll get the two Michelin stars they’re aiming for. Not that I give a lick. Seeing the check delivered inside one of the tire company’s red guidebooks made my eyes roll, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that a meal at Ômo is very much worth a detour.
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This article appears in Jul 24-30, 2024.