Ten Juicy Secrets About Restaurants I Learned Working as Nobu’s Maitre D’

One such star was Robert De Niro, who spent four years convincing Nobu that an enterprise in the actor’s native New York City would be lucky, too.

Fast-forward to now, and Bob and Nobu-san, as they’re called, have expanded their restaurant business into a global lifestyle brand that includes hotels and condos and forecasts revenue of more than $1 billion in the next five years.

To understand the unflagging fervor for all things Nobu, I happily accepted an offer to maitre d’ at both New York locations: Nobu Fifty Seven in Midtown and Nobu Downtown in the Financial District. The position is usually reserved for a staffer who’s clocked well more than a decade with the company. From fetching deodorant for fragrant patrons to shuttling orders for black cod via private jet, here’s everything I learned.

Nobu Restaurants Are Designed for VIPs

During my 10-day stint, I recognized over 20 undisguised names on the reservations ­roster, including two Oscar-winning actors, an Emmy-winning showrunner, a Marvel Comics actress, several famous-for-being-famous socialites, a legendary singer-songwriter, a trending fashion designer, a Super Bowl winner, a rapper, and J-Lo and A-Rod on a date. “We fully appreciate that we’re a cafeteria for A-listers,” a manager says.

About 50% of VVIPs come with their own security. You can expect at least one table a night to be clandestinely filled with bodyguards acting like regular guests. The restaurant has security as an additional courtesy, though the in-house team is also there to back up the staff.

De Niro prefers the “sake table” in an alcove space at Nobu Downtown. But that beautiful shelf of vases around it isn’t a decorative accent—it’s a strategic barrier to create what the staff calls “visual privacy.” Curtains can be drawn to section off areas, and both New York restaurants have secret entrances for VVIPs—Nobu Fifty Seven has no fewer than three. If you spot a notable patron at a Nobu, it’s because they want you to see them.

The Seating Chart Is a Game of Risk 

Manager Amanda Stymeist spends 45 minutes before each dinner “dressing the room” at Nobu Downtown. First comes the offense: slotting movie stars into shaded corners where they won’t be gawked at, placing Wall Street guys at quiet positions to talk business. “Everyone wants one of our four booth tables—it’s like constructing a ­puzzle with 14 corner pieces,” says Johnny Hildreth, another Nobu Downtown manager. At both New York locations, the booths are the best see-and-be-seen options. “We even have subscriptions to People and Us Weekly to read up on the latest who’s who—and who shouldn’t be seated near whom,” Hildreth says. The hosts, a decade younger, are tapped to spot the YouTube stars.

When the doors open, the strategy switches to defense as all types arrive: bachelorette parties with obscene balloons, or guests with animals. Before a canine is let in, two questions are asked: “Is it a service animal?” and “What service does it provide?” Nobu doesn’t feed pups—but it once got a request to fill a Pomeranian’s bowl with Champagne. “I brought them the bowl and put the bottle of bubbly on the table,” Hildreth says. “That’s where I drew the line.”

Take-Away Orders Are Delivered by Private Jet

Officially, Nobu doesn’t offer take-away—a decision made to safeguard quality—but there’s always an exception to the rule. The restaurants’ most common version of takeout arrives via personal plane. “We’ll do at least 20 orders a month and more during busier weeks like spring break,” says Anne Yamamoto, special events manager for the Nobus in New York and the mastermind behind the delivery of lunches and dinners to VIP clients as they shuttle around the globe.

For casual to-go dining at home, a slew of celebs have the restaurants’ managers on speed dial. One of the Ocean’s 8 gals has Stymeist’s cell number so the manager can troubleshoot a weekly take-away order from the nearest Nobu location. During my shift, from the oceans she ate: sashimi, sliced extra thin, and the standard yellowtail jalapeño and black cod—plus crispy rice, extra crispy, and two orders of beef tenderloin with a side of chopped onions and scallions, which was a pretty normal order for her. A different film and TV star obsessively orders takeout when she’s in New York. She placed two dinner orders during my short gig—it’s a good thing her traveling pants have an elastic waistband. Her yellow­tail jalapeño has to be sliced thin, with absolutely no red bloodlines showing.

Staff try to steer orders away from dishes that involve rice, because the combination with raw fish is fragile, but caviar requests are honored, including from an Avengers star who recently requested a buffet’s worth of after-dinner roe to go.

But There’s a Limit to Celebs’ Special Treatment

Surprisingly, celebrities don’t have access to a secret phone number: All bookings for the New York restaurants wind up with the centralized reservations team. VIPs are offered passwords to expedite bookings and to avoid fakers imitating them. Often it’s a first name and some numbers, but some codes—like “JuicyBooty” for a certain pop diva—are easier to remember.

With seatings, celebrities such as Drake, Martha Stewart, and the Kardashian coven are wild cards. They tend to book in the late afternoon on the day they dine to minimize the eyeballs on their reservation; it’s not uncommon for a pro athlete to request a last-­minute 15-seater after a basketball game, for instance. Once a famous recording artist with a reservation for 15 arrived with a party of 30 and stayed well past closing. All was forgiven when, at 1:30 a.m., he serenaded the staff. If a guest is rude on the phone, it’s usually one who isn’t famous, says a reservationist: “We brace ourselves for three to four ‘Do you know who I am?!’ conversations a day.”

You’ll Never Score a 7:30 p.m. Reservation

Legends of A-listers unable to get a table fill the annals of Nobu—Tom Cruise was famously turned away; Madonna had to wait 30 minutes—and today you’ll still never get a 7:30 p.m. seating. Here’s why: The reservations team creates two service cycles a night, one at about 6 p.m., the other at about 8:30 p.m. It’s simple math. Parties of two tend to take two hours to dine, and for groups of three to six, add an additional 30 minutes. Larger tables take about three hours. Guests then are seated every 15 minutes from 5:45 p.m. to 6:15 p.m. and from 8:15 p.m. to 9 p.m., ensuring a steady flow of service for the 300 to 500 customers per evening. Generally the team overbooks the restaurant by about 10% each night to allow for no-shows and last-­minute cancellations. For non-VIPs, the best way to snag a table is to call the restaurant about 4 p.m. on the day before you want to dine—the sweet spot between last-minute cancellations and eleventh-hour bookings.

New York Patrons Are Less Rude Than the Rest of the World

“The New York City clients are largely the best behaved,” says Jad Marouche, beverage manager at Nobu Fifty Seven and Nobu Downtown. The stories from his time at the Los Angeles branches (West Hollywood and Malibu) get the most eye-rolls from his colleagues, such as when a well-known movie director acted as if the cost of an extra $10 bottle of Fiji water was the end of the world. A few weeks later, Marouche heard the director say he’d installed a Fiji tap in his home that even piped the premium water through his shower. Another thorn in Marouche’s side was the Hollywood fixture so similar to the character he portrayed on a well-known sitcom that he always showed up drunk and slurry, yelling at waitresses as they passed.

Mistreatment of staff (touching or swearing at them) will get you permanently barred, a decision that comes all the way down from the owners. But Nobu is discreet; an evictee has to take it upon himself to make a ban newsworthy—like when billionaire Stewart Rahr threw a hissy fit to management in an email on which he copied everyone from Leonardo DiCaprio to Alicia Keys.

The Fancy Sushi You’re Eating Was Probably Frozen

The U.S. Food and Drug Admin- istration strongly suggests all fish served raw should be frozen first, a practice that’s now law in New York City. Yes, you read that correctly: Almost every slice of sushi slung in the Big Apple has been freezer-treated, which means you’re never eating fish delivered that day. At Nobu, the soon-to-be sashimi goes into a medical-grade fridge that flash-freezes the product at -90C.

“We’re using the same freezer hospitals have to keep blood, so the fish cells don’t break down upon defrosting,” says Matt Hoyle, executive chef at both New York Nobus. Fish that will be cooked doesn’t need to be ­frozen. Generally, special items such as kisu (Japanese whiting) and tobiuo (flying fish) arrive at Nobu on Tuesdays or Wednesdays; ­premium cuts come on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

The Staff Will Make Deodorant Runs

The reservations team estimates that more than 70% of the names in their database have at least one bulleted item appended, ranging from “tap water, no ice” to “always likes to talk to a manager.” A designer who lives in Tribeca allows no one to touch anything on her table—servers can place dishes, but water glasses must stay on the table when they’re refilled, and napkins may not be refolded. Another regular, a supermodel from the ’80s, always brings in sugar-free ingredients and splashes around mixing the sauces. “I’ve thought of asking if she wants a chef’s apron,” says Hildreth. He’s even left Nobu to pick up deodorant for a businessman not-so-fresh off a London flight.

Uptown Customers Eat More Than $1 Million Worth of Black Cod a Year

Chef Nobu’s legendary cuisine has changed America’s concept of Japanese food. Pioneering dishes, such as black cod with miso or yellowtail sashimi with jalapeño, have been replicated at restaurants nationwide. At Nobu Fifty Seven, the black cod dish represented more than $1 million in sales in 2018. The yellowtail jalapeño did more than $1.5 million. Nobu’s Midtown hub isn’t even the empire’s most profitable location—that honor goes to the one in Malibu.

In New York the average person spends $120, not including tip; the number rises with large parties when sake magnums are toted out. A big spend is considered anything from $400 to $500; epic tabs come in at more than $1,000 a person. The omakase—a prix fixe sampler of some of the finest dishes—starts at $135. High rollers can set their own omakase price for premium eats, which ranges from $250 to $500 a head.

Extremely strict rules govern precise dish rollout. Even the tufts of lettuce are weighed before they’re incorporated into a salad (70 grams a plate). Separate line cooks man each station—salads, soups, tempura, sauté, grill, and pastry—supervising only a few recipes each.

Rich People Will Dine and Dash, Too

Some diners attempt to get away with not paying for their meal. “Oh, we’ve definitely had people who’ve tried,” says a manager. There are other payment challenges: Once at the Miami location, a known cartel member threw a chair at a manager and threatened not to pay his $6,000-plus bar tab because the manager wouldn’t sing happy birthday to the kingpin’s girlfriend. The manager was able to talk him down. The cartel member eventually apologized and extricated a hefty wad of cash from his briefcase to pay.

There are, of course, exceptions in the other direction. The Downtown service team still talks about a gratuity left more than six months ago by a high-profile chief executive who was out dining with six friends, including an A-list actress and a model. He left an extra $22,000 on an $8,000 bill. Everyone working that evening reaped the ­benefits of his drunken generosity/miscalculation.

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