Akari is the Japanese restaurant inside Aman New York. Dinner goes to hotel guests and Aman Club Founders, and the counter that matters most has seven seats.
The Crown Building stands on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, two blocks from Central Park. It was the first home of the Museum of Modern Art in the 1920s. Aman holds it now, with 83 suites, a double-height lobby on the fourteenth floor and interiors by Jean-Michel Gathy of Denniston.
Akari is the hotel’s Japanese table. Chef Takuma Yonemaru runs it. The room opened as Nama, and Aman’s own pages still use both names.
The room
A wall of chiselled rock greets you at the entrance. The ceilings take their cue from Frank Lloyd Wright. The light is low and the colours are dark, so each plate has the room to itself.
The tableware is handmade and carries the mark of the hand. Aman describes the idea as wabi-sabi, beauty in imperfection. Recessed alcoves, tokonoma in Japanese, hold artworks beyond the plate.
The dining room at Akari, Aman New York · Courtesy of Aman
The counter
The omakase counter is hinoki wood and seats seven. The chef chooses the menu. Sittings run at 5:30 and 8:30 on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, which caps the counter at fourteen guests a night.
Kaiseki takes over early in the week. It runs on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings from 5:30 to 8:30, with reservations in thirty-minute intervals. The kitchen cooks washoku, the Japanese table that UNESCO recognises as Intangible Cultural Heritage, built on seasonal produce from nearby growers.
Seven seats, two sittings, three nights a week. Fifth Avenue rarely gets a table this small.
Isabelle RoweThe door
Akari is currently open to hotel guests and Aman Club Founders only. Lunch runs Monday to Friday from noon to 2:30. Dinner is served every day from 5:30 to 10, and the weekend lunch slot stays closed.
Arva, the hotel’s all-day Italian restaurant, sits in the same building. It cooks cucina del raccolto, a harvest kitchen drawn from local farms and markets. Aman notes that the Akari menus are samples and subject to change.
Restaurant, chef, design, hours and access from Aman’s Akari page, accessed 4 November 2026. Hotel details from Aman’s Aman New York materials. Menus are subject to change.
Photography courtesy of Aman — © Aman