Unagi-Ya Hachibei

"Unagi-Ya Hachibei offers eel with a “cleaner” flavor. Though more expensive at $65 compared to Unagi Aburi Ittetsu's $45, the meal includes extras like salad, dashi, daikon pickles, and matcha ice cream. It is praised by Hannah Goldfield." - Carla Vianna

"Diablo, and anyone else seeking unagi, would be much better off at Unagi-Ya Hachibei, which opened in November. Up an anonymous set of stairs in midtown, the place has a bit of a speakeasy vibe, romantically dim and atmospheric. At lunch, a whole-eel unaju is ten dollars more than at Aburi Ittetsu. (At dinner, it goes up another ten.) The difference is worth it for what’s included: a tangle of mixed greens; a bowl of clear, fragrant, floral-tasting dashi; smoky daikon pickles; and thick, almost stretchy yuzu sorbet or matcha ice cream for dessert. But the eel itself, sourced, the menu specifies, from Aichi, in central Japan, is a cut above, too. You can order it Western style (grilled, for a firm texture, then sliced into slivers) or Eastern style (steamed first, for silkiness, then grilled and left in fillets); either way, the cleaner, more buttery flavor of the fish shines through. The recipe for the complex, caramelized tare was honed for decades on Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s main islands." - Hannah Goldfield