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Located in the arid-looking Hotel Gansevoort, mega Japanese food palace Ono is yet another production by that flamboyant restaurant showman Jeffrey Chodorow. The multi-level dining space boasts softly floating paper lanterns, a glass-bottomed sushi bar, and semi-private dining nooks decorated with wall-size paintings of yakuza body tattoos. A perky, knowledgeable "sake sommelier" is on hand to help diners navigate the list of absurdly named sakes, and if you need an old-fashioned wine sommelier, there's one of those, too. The specialty of the house is robata, a fancy name for skewers of meat cooked over an open flame. And if you want a dish that encapsulates the absurd spirit of the modern-day New York Japanese restaurant, order the edamame soup, a viscous, swamp-colored substance poured, with great ceremony, over cubes of tofu carved into the letters o-n-o. — Adam Platt

Entrance at W. 13th St., between Hudson St. and Ninth Ave.

Prix-Fixe Menu
Mon.-Fri., noon-3 p.m.; three courses, $28

Note
If you're into such things, the fully automated Toto toilet hidden upstairs in the restaurant's second-floor restroom is a technological marvel.

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