Restaurant in New York City, United States
Consistent, low-key Japanese. Easy to book.
Omen is a traditional Japanese restaurant in SoHo with three consecutive years on Opinionated About Dining's Top Restaurants in North America list. Dinner-only, Monday through Saturday until 10 pm, it is one of the neighbourhood's more reliable late-evening options and easier to book than most Japanese rooms at this recognition level. A practical, considered choice for food-driven diners who want depth without the omakase commitment.
If you have already been to Omen once, you already know the answer: yes, go back. The restaurant's consistency is its signal. Ranked #529 on Opinionated About Dining's Leading Restaurants in North America in 2024 and climbing to #567 in 2025 (a tighter, more competitive list year on year), Omen has held a place on that ranking since at least 2023, which in New York's Japanese dining category means something. This is not a venue chasing trends — it earns repeat visits through reliability, not novelty.
For the food-driven traveller who wants depth over spectacle, Omen is a more considered choice than the trophy-room Japanese spots that dominate the city's higher price tiers. It sits on Thompson Street in SoHo, open Monday through Saturday from 5 to 10 pm and closed Sundays — hours that make it a genuine late-dinner option for anyone whose evening runs long. The 10 pm last-service window is later than many of the city's more formal Japanese rooms, which routinely cap seatings at 9 or 9:30 pm.
The room at Omen reads as deliberately low-key for SoHo: the kind of space that asks you to pay attention to what is on the plate rather than what is on the walls. The atmosphere skews intimate and quiet by neighbourhood standards, which makes it a practical pick when conversation matters as much as the food. It is not a room designed to impress at a glance , it earns its place through atmosphere that settles rather than announces itself. For diners coming from louder or more sceney alternatives in the neighbourhood, that restraint functions as a feature.
Return visitors tend to find that Omen's value is precisely its lack of reinvention. Chef Norio Shinohara runs a programme rooted in traditional Japanese cooking, and the menu does not dramatically shift to signal the seasons in the way that, say, a tasting-menu format might. What changes is your familiarity with the pacing and the register of the food. A second visit is typically easier to read: you arrive knowing the tempo, and the meal lands with more clarity. That is a rarer quality than it sounds in a city where restaurants often perform novelty to justify return visits.
For current-season dining, the evening-only format means Omen functions as a dinner-only destination , there is no lunch service to consider. The 5 pm open means early-evening bookings are available if you want a quieter room before the neighbourhood fills up later in the week.
Among Japanese restaurants in New York City, Omen occupies a different tier to Noda or odo in terms of format and price positioning, and a different register entirely to the city's high-end omakase counters. If you are weighing up the broader SoHo and downtown Japanese dining field, Tsukimi and Blue Ribbon Sushi Izakaya are worth cross-referencing depending on your preferred format. For a more casual adjacent option, Chikarashi covers different ground in the same city.
Compared to the Tokyo standard , venues like Myojaku or Azabu Kadowaki , Omen is playing a different game, and that is not a criticism. It is a neighbourhood Japanese restaurant with a sustained national ranking, which puts it in a narrower category than that description might suggest.
Reservations: Booking difficulty is rated Easy , you should be able to secure a table without extended lead time, which distinguishes Omen from more competitive Japanese rooms in the city. Hours: Monday to Saturday, 5–10 pm; closed Sunday. Address: 113 Thompson St, New York, NY 10012. Budget: Price range not confirmed in current data , check directly with the venue. Dress: No dress code listed; smart casual is a safe read for a SoHo Japanese room at this recognition level.
For more options across the city, see our full New York City restaurants guide, our full New York City hotels guide, our full New York City bars guide, our full New York City wineries guide, and our full New York City experiences guide. Further afield, the same food-forward traveller who rates Omen will find comparable rigour at Lazy Bear in San Francisco, Smyth in Chicago, and Providence in Los Angeles, or at a higher price point at The French Laundry in Napa and Single Thread Farm in Healdsburg. For a different city entirely, Emeril's in New Orleans is a useful point of comparison for what sustained local institution status looks like in a different American dining market.
Omen is a traditional Japanese restaurant in SoHo with a sustained national ranking (Opinionated About Dining's Leading Restaurants in North America, three consecutive years). It is dinner-only, Monday through Saturday, 5–10 pm. Booking is relatively easy compared to most Japanese restaurants at this recognition level in New York City, so you do not need to plan weeks in advance. Go in expecting a quieter, more considered meal than the neighbourhood's louder options , this is not a scene restaurant.
Yes, Omen is a reasonable solo-dining choice in SoHo. The room's intimate scale and the relatively easy booking process mean you are not fighting for a single seat the way you would at a sought-after counter. The format suits a solo diner who wants to eat Japanese food without the commitment of an omakase, though exact seating configurations are not confirmed in current data , call ahead if you want to confirm counter availability.
This is not confirmed in current data. Contact the restaurant directly before booking , phone number and website are not listed in Pearl's current record for Omen, so your leading route is to check via your reservation platform or a direct approach through the venue's booking channel. Traditional Japanese menus can be inflexible around common restrictions, so it is worth confirming in advance rather than on arrival.
Dinner is your only option , Omen does not serve lunch. Hours are Monday to Saturday, 5–10 pm, with no midday service. If you want an early sitting, the 5 pm open means you can book for the start of service on a weekday and get a quieter room. Later in the evening on Fridays and Saturdays, expect a fuller restaurant.
Specific menu items are not confirmed in Pearl's current data for this venue, and generating dish recommendations without a verified source would be guesswork. What the OAD ranking and chef Norio Shinohara's reputation signal is a programme grounded in traditional Japanese cooking rather than fusion or contemporary reinterpretation. Ask the server what is current when you arrive , at a restaurant with this track record, that question tends to get a useful answer.
Group suitability is not confirmed in current data , seat count and private dining availability are not listed in Pearl's record. For larger parties (six or more), call ahead to check capacity and configuration. The room's intimate character suggests this is not a venue built around large-group bookings, but smaller groups of three or four should be fine to book through standard channels.
| Venue | Cuisine | Price | Booking Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|
| Omen | Japanese | Easy | |
| Le Bernardin | French, Seafood | $$$$ | Unknown |
| Atomix | Modern Korean, Korean | $$$$ | Unknown |
| Per Se | French, Contemporary | $$$$ | Unknown |
| Masa | Sushi, Japanese | $$$$ | Unknown |
| Eleven Madison Park | French, Vegan | $$$$ | Unknown |
Comparing your options in New York City for this tier.
Omen is a dinner-only restaurant on Thompson Street in SoHo, open Monday through Saturday from 5–10 pm. The format is traditional Japanese under Chef Norio Shinohara, with a room that prioritises food over atmosphere. It has ranked on Opinionated About Dining's Top Restaurants in North America every year from 2023 to 2025, which is a reliable signal that the kitchen is consistent. Booking is straightforward — you do not need weeks of lead time the way you would at Atomix or Masa.
Yes. The low-key room and focused Japanese format make Omen a practical solo choice — you are there for the food, not a social spectacle. It is open six evenings a week, and the easy booking difficulty means you can often secure a seat without planning far ahead. Solo diners looking for a more counter-driven experience might also consider odo, but Omen works well for a quiet, considered dinner alone.
Specific dietary accommodation policies are not documented in available venue data for Omen. check the venue's official channels before booking if restrictions are a factor — this is standard practice for Japanese restaurants where the menu structure may limit substitutions. The cuisine type is Japanese, and the programme is rooted in traditional cooking, which suggests the kitchen has a defined approach rather than a highly flexible one.
Dinner is the only option. Omen is open 5–10 pm Monday through Saturday and is closed on Sundays, so there is no lunch service to compare. If you want Japanese lunch in SoHo, you will need to look elsewhere. For dinner, the consistent OAD ranking from 2023 through 2025 suggests the evening programme delivers reliably.
Specific dish recommendations are not available in the venue record, and Pearl does not fabricate menu details. What is documented is that Chef Norio Shinohara runs a programme grounded in traditional Japanese cooking. The restaurant's repeated placement on OAD's North America list — ranked #529 in 2024 and #567 in 2025 — points to a kitchen with a defined point of view rather than a rotating trend-driven menu. Ask the staff for guidance on the night; a kitchen this consistent usually has staff who know the menu well.
Group-specific capacity or private dining information is not documented for Omen. The SoHo address and the deliberately low-key room described in available context suggest this is not a large-format venue. For a group dinner, confirm directly with the restaurant before assuming they can seat a party of six or more. If a private dining room or guaranteed large-group booking is your priority, Per Se or Eleven Madison Park offer more infrastructure for that format.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
