That is madness! People are paying for the whole saito counter for a mere 2 seats.

Indeed, it’s not that hard to arrange a buyout at Saito

I have to agree with Justin here. Japan is the only country I could think of in which most has counter seatings. Therefore, the chefs will have to interact with the customers for the whole meal. In contrary, the top restaurants in Europe and USA, the chefs will most likely chat with you for five minutes when they visit your table. So the chefs in Japan will probably want to serve their food to customers who them have prior relationship with or are able to appreciate their cooking. That is why they introduced the introduction only system.

When I visited those restaurants, the chefs were not discriminatory at all even though I was a single diner first timer gaijin. Once they saw that you truly appreciate their work and you are not just their for the IG stories, then they will treat you no different from their regulars.

When you have the chance to visit restaurants in Japan, try show your passion and interest to them. You never know when you will receive the help you need. It may come from completely unexpected places.

There are also many top class restaurants in Japan that are still under the radar and easy to book. So don’t miss out visiting those places :)

I may be too transactional but I expect the chef to give a good atmosphere equally without requiring patrons to invest in coming N times to build a rapport. For example you mention Sugita, in my experience he treats patron equally well, with similar intimacy, whether they are repeat or new. It also make me want to go again. Places when the chef gives a cold shoulder to newcomers and treats repeats extra-nice, make me want to not come back. Places I repeat myself are places where I feel a good atmosphere and good food that make me want to come back in a different occasion/season.

It likely also has to do with the character of the chef, which I guess we can now judge easily when it comes to the list of the participants in the above screenshot lol.

Yee How here, sorry can't remember my login details. Fatherhood is taking its toll on me.

I agree with Justin, it's "fun" to chase superstar restaurants but it is not the end of the world if you don't dine there.
There will always be superstar restaurants before and after your time on earth. If the superstar place is bookable by a hotel concierge, consider it a bonus. If not, just move on. You have far more important things to do in life.

Just explore all the places you are interested in and are bookable and keep on revisiting the ones which you really like.

I will divulge my personal favourite restaurant is sushi takaoka. I have revisited it every trip since the first time I went there. Solid consistent food(great sushi, but may not be the best sushi out there), accept kids at certain timings ,reasonably priced during this sushi boom, comfortable environment, shy and humble chef and super easy to book(you can just book via tablecheck(no funny nonsense like camping for omakase to open or using this shokuoku service or paying inflated prices to tableall). Abit too much free advertising, but I sincerely respect how he runs his business.

For the record, I have gone to a few of the restaurants in shoukuoku's list, they seem to be decent folks. I don't even think it matters to us how they choose to "sell" their seats. If you don't like it, just don't use this service. It is purely business and it is up to them how they would want to ensure their seats are fully occupied. If few people uses it, it will eventually fold. Though I do see there is a market of this service especially for influencers, I don't think it will seriously matter to most of us.

I disagree that it doesn't matter. If this was done in any other country it would be totally unacceptable and huge criticisms. But because it's Japan everyone just accepts it.

If you do not agree, you always has the option to not visit Japan. Maybe one day, things will change but just probably not in the near future.

Does the lottery/raffle system in Omakase ever worked? Anybody had any luck thus far?

@guest would like to know this as well. Is the raffle only there to make it seem "fairer" but doesn't actually do anything? Or does it really work?

Just a handful of restaurants use the raffle system. Pellegrino used it but they seem to have stopped. Basically you get a ticket (you can get one per 24hr over a period of time). When the period closes, they announce if you won or lost. If you won, you get access to a window of time where only lottery winners can make a booking, a few hours before the official reservation opens to everyone.

Not perfect and not really used since the ~6months they created this feature. But still a better concept than auctions or big rush where everyone tries to connect at the same time when reservations open.

You just said it yourself. 2x-3x more occupants per night. That is a very significant change in supply. Can you imagine the price of petrol if supply increased 200-300%.

Have you also considered that the population of greater Tokyo is 37 million residents. That's approaching the population of ALL of Spain, just in one city.

I'm not sure what operating costs has to do with this as this was discussion around seat availability not the profitability of European vs Japanese restaurants.

I for one don't like this system, and think Omakase has it issues. But I have yet to find a truly better solution amongst all this "complaining"

I think it's actually even more than that. Most restaurant in that list can seat less than 10-12 ppl (except Takiya), Most 3 stars I know in Paris can seat at minimum 30. In fact most could probably accommodate the entire service of a Saito/Chiune (~8ppl) on just one table. I don't think it is comparable :D