House of Yoshin opens in Huntington

When a server whispers something into your ear, it's usually bad news. But that's not the case at House of Yoshin, an ambitious Japanese kaiseki tasting menu spot where each of the 10 courses is introduced with quiet reflection. 

"Wagyu kombu jime, white asparagus tofu paste, bottarga," one description goes, which may be difficult to follow if you are taking the sake pairings. Approachable or not, it's exquisite. Not to mention, the dish is served on a 250-year-old porcelain plate that belongs in a museum.

The refined two-hour meal feels at times like a group meditation. Soft piano music plays from the speakers. Ingredients are an ode to nature. There are no windows into the chef's counter room, which has the feel of a spa with light earth tones and a long bar made from unfinished hinoki wood. So it's easy to forget you are in Huntington, in the bones of the beloved old school Japanese restaurant KuraBarn. The environment feels like Tokyo, or maybe a more rural Japanese town that still has premium chef things going on. 

Wilson Weng, also behind the popular hibachi mini chain Kashi, as well as Voodoo Crab, SUP Vietnamese and Sora Omakase, is one of the owners. After meeting with the previous owners of KuraBarn, which closed during the pandemic, Weng and other partners spent 2½ years renovating the property. A dark and cozy lounge up front serves a small menu of Japanese-inspired cocktails and bites. The 10-seat dining room is tucked off the to the side, undertaking two seatings a night for $262.50 all-inclusive with tax and tip, but without alcohol pairings. There's a members-only lounge upstairs that specializes in rare Japanese whiskeys and shochus at an up-front cost of $3,000 per year. 

It's a bold move for Huntington. To front it, Weng teamed up with chef Tadaaki "Zack" Ishizaki, who was raised on a small farm on the coast in the Ibaraki prefecture and got his start cooking for Joël Robuchon at Château Restaurant in Tokyo. The chef moved to New York in 2016 and was most recently the executive culinary director at the kaiseki bar odo in Manhattan, which has two Michelin stars. In addition to his restaurant work, Ishizaki also promotes Japanese dry aging beef, highlighted in the restaurant's takeaway gift of whisper-thin, almost candy-like wagyu sirloin jerky. 

Ishizaki has a subtle presence he shares with the two other chefs behind the counter. You'll probably hear more from general manager Taksim Chowdhury, who begins each seating with a description of the restaurant's name, Yoshin: "a feeling of good sense, an experience that has no words." (Chowdhury also did much of the whispering.) But you'll feel the chefs' ethos in each course and its ritualistic presentation.

A Zen Buddhist tradition, kaiseki differs from omakase in that it's less reliant on raw fish. But if you're not a fan of seafood, you should probably sit this out. Many of the courses feature intensely flavored homemade dashi fish broth, inspired by Ishizaki's grandmother's cooking. Some of the wild-caught Japanese fish preparations — like the otoro tuna on rice — are revelatory. Others, like a hairy crab dumpling and glutinous strings of whitebait, are more challenging. The dinner is also, admittedly, not a ton of food. 

The crowd-favorite of the evening is uni isobeage, a style of fried tempura featuring seaweed in the batter for an ocean flavor. Uni is a delicacy usually served raw at most Japanese restaurants. But here the buttery sea urchin is fried into a cigar shape and presented in a napkin like a street food. The crispy batter is much more delicate and the herbal flavor of shiso leaf really sets it off.

But it's the aforementioned wagyu kombu jime that almost brings me to tears. Kombu jime refers to a technique usually reserved for fish aged between two sheets of kelp. Here the chef uses premium Wagyu beef, which becomes glutinous and fatty, almost like a smoked salmon, but with a deep, savory beef flavor. A dab of crisp white asparagus on the side is smothered in a cheesy paste made from tofu. Decorated with foraged flower buds, the portion is small and mighty, and the flavors wallop. But part of the reason it hits so hard is the flowery plate, which dates back 250 years to the Edo period, the kind of lonely artifact that you usually squint at behind a thick pane of glass. Here, the ancient Japanese art is revived and flourishing in its natural habitat, the dinner table.   

House of Yoshin, 479 New York Ave., Huntington, 631-223-0231, houseofyoshin.com. Open 4-10 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Seatings at 6 p.m. and 8:15 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday, seatings at 5 p.m. and 7:15 p.m. Sunday. 

By Andi Berlin

andi.berlin@newsday.comAndiBerlin

Andi Berlin is from Arizona and does not know where she is going. But when she gets there, she’ll find something beautiful and delicious that the world needs to taste.