Famous Chef Is Bringing His Entire Sushi Restaurant in Japan to NYC

Mastercard is putting a new spin on its famous catchphrase, “Priceless.”

The financial services company is now taking a crack at the world of fine dining with Priceless — An International Culinary Collective. This so-called “restaurant-in-residence” program is basically a trio of pop-ups that are painstaking replicas of famous restaurants from around the world. Priceless opens Thursday, Aug. 2 in New York City, and also includes a food cart experience called Global Market by Chef JJ and Spring Terrace (a reimagining  of New York City’s Spring Place private membership club).

Reservations for all of the, well, priceless culinary experiences can be booked through OpenTable. And yes, all of them come with an actual — and sometimes quite hefty — price tag.

A promising dining destination designed exclusively for Mastercard holders and globetrotting foodies, the Collective features The Rock from Zanzibar, Tanzania; Teruzushi from Kitakyushu, Japan; and Lyaness from London, United Kingdom.

These restaurants are as close as you’ll get to the originals unless you want to buy flights to Europe or Africa. In the case of Teruzushi, they haven’t just recreated the iconic sushi restaurant — they actually closed down the restaurant in Japan and shipped the entire thing to the Big Apple.

Chef Takayoshi Watanabe is even leaving Japan to create an exclusive sushi experience at Teruzushi each night, which is limited to 12 guests, twice a night. (He also has quite an impressive Instagram following.) The 16-course omakase menu costs a cool $395 per person.

We aren’t quite sure if Priceless can successfully capture the feeling of being at The Rock in Zanzibar, Tanzania. Replicating a restaurant located off the coast of Africa, surrounded by the turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean, is not an easy feat in Manhattan, after all. Hopefully, it’s enough to make the concrete jungle feel, well, more like a tropical destination and less like concrete. A six-course tasting menu here costs $135 per person.

For serious drink lovers, there’s award-winning bartender Ryan Chetiyawardana — better known as “Mr Lyan” — who will serve expertly-crafted cocktails at Lyaness. The cover price of $50 includes two drinks from the Lyaness Drink Menu. Smaller plates are available as well, but we’d be excited to sip on the Purple Pineapple, the Lyaness Martini or even the Double Painkiller, the latter of which features two rums, coconut aquavit, banana and citrus.

In addition to the three transported restaurants, Priceless is also home to the Global Market Rooftop and Spring Terrace. At the Global Market, chef JJ Johnson will dish out small plates from gourmet food carts. For $60 per person, the reservation includes three dishes, one dessert and a drink.

And at the Spring Terrace, executive chef Fabio Bano will present his signature coastal Mediterranean fare, typically reserved for members of the private club, Spring Place, in TriBeCa.

There is one catch: Guests can only pay with a Mastercard or cash. Luckily, Mastercard has no shortage of cards that can help you maximize a splurge at Priceless. The Citi Premier Card earns you 2x points on dining and entertainment, and if you’re still in the sign-up bonus period, the possible 60,000 ThankYou Rewards points (worth $1,020) after spending $4,000 in the first three months could be incentive enough.

With the Citi Prestige, you’ll earn 5x ThankYou points on dining, and you can transfer those points to Citi’s 16 travel partners, including Air France/KLM Flying Blue, Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer, Virgin Atlantic and more. The annual fee is $400 more than the Citi Premier, but the Citi Prestige also offers its 4th Night Free hotel benefit that gives you a fourth night free on paid hotel stays of four nights or more, and you’ll still earn 3x points for booking the hotel with your Prestige card. So, if New York City isn’t your home base and you’re coming to sample Priceless from out of town, the Citi Prestige could really pay off.

You can also earn 4% cash back on dining purchases with the Capital One Savor Cash Rewards Credit Card — also a Mastercard. The annual fee of $95 is waived the first year, and if you’re feeling lazy (read: overstuffed) after a trip to Priceless, register with Postmates Unlimited for free food delivery and the card will provide a statement credit for monthly membership fees charged through December 2019.

If you need another incentive to splurge, Mastercard will donate one cent to Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) when cardholders spend $10 or more for dining out.

Featured image courtesy of Noah Fecks