• Yujin

  24 E. 12th St., 10003, between Fifth Ave. and University Place, 212-924-4286

  After primping and grooming before a dinner out, wouldn’t you rather look a little more Kate Hudson or Brad, a little less Kathy Bates or Billy Bob? It isn’t just the sole meunière that has had women gravitating to La Grenouille for years, it’s the indirect glow that bounces off the flowers and gives them their own rosy aura; and models, who know a thing or two about lighting, have been flocking to the dim banquettes at Indochine for years. But as obsessed as New Yorkers are with sushi, there are few places we can enjoy it without also having to sit under a withering fluorescent glare. There’s only Blue Water Grill, where the raw tuna tastes like velvet, and yellow light filters through red blinds that cast everyone in the perfect shade of pink, and now Yujin, which opened earlier this spring. There, dim halogen spots highlight design features like a ceiling made of nearly 30,000 chopsticks and a glass-paneled wall etched with gold leaf, and deep-amber gels cover tube lamps above the banquettes, bathing patrons in a golden sunset hue. Even the fish looks more alive.

From the 2004 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine