Shuko

Nick Kim and Jimmy Lau’s popular, much-praised (including by us) Union Square operation tumbles a little in these updated rankings for all the usual reasons — the unrelenting crush of popularity, the arrival in town of a new wave of competition, the challenges of innovation, and the sense, on our last visit, of the same ideas being repeated again and again. By today’s standards, however, $180 is not a bad price to pay for a full mini-omakase feast (up to 16 pieces of sushi with a few non-sushi items thrown in), and there’s still no glorified fish house in town that combines upscale quality with that down-home, distinctively infectious New York City backbeat.