Sushi Nakazawa, America's Hottest Sushi Restaurant, Brought to You by an Italian From the Bronx

About 20 minutes into dinner at New York’s Sushi Nakazawa, the fish on the plate is still moving. The chef puts down a sea scallop and flicks it gently; it twitches once, then he adds tart yuzu and spicy chili pepper. “I wanted it to be theatrical,” says Alessandro Borgognone, the bald 33-year-old who owns the restaurant and runs the show, usually wearing jeans. “A sushi bar without theatrics—what fun is that? It becomes a game, the poking of the scallop. It’s early in the meal, so it gets customers excited.”

The customers, who have waited for weeks or even months for their seats, don’t necessarily need the extra stimulus. Last December, Sushi Nakazawa, a tiny joint in the West Village, became one of only six restaurants in Manhattan to get a top rating of four stars from the New York Times. The review made Borgognone the youngest restaurateur to receive that honor. But even before the space opened in August, advance coverage by food bloggers caused a crush of 1,000 reservations. Most were vying for one of the 10 seats at the restaurant’s pristine white marble bar, where chef and namesake Daisuke Nakazawa serves from his knife directly to diners. There are 30 additional spots in the adjacent dining room, filled with patrons who have flown in from Brazil, China, Hong Kong, and San Francisco. On one February night, a group of Japanese women from London said they bought plane tickets just to try the meal. A three-star Michelin chef also stopped by, still hungry after a dinner at the four-star Le Bernardin.