"On a recent evening, the chef Mako Okano stood behind the counter at Shabu Shabu Macoron, on the Lower East Side, looking a little like Rosie the Riveter: bandanna knotted around her head, the sleeves of her denim kimono rolled up to her elbows. After two years cooking at the soba restaurant Cocoron and its outpost, Goemon Curry, she opened this eight-seat place across the street last fall, with a small staff made up only of women. And that’s not even the most unusual thing about it: according to Okano, it’s the world’s only restaurant to serve an omakase, or tasting menu, that centers on shabu-shabu, or Japanese hotpot." - Hannah Goldfield
Photograph by Zachary Zavislak for The New Yorker
