Four peachy-pink snow crabs lie in a row, waiting to be cooked. They could be dead, were it not for the flickering of an antenna or the occasional terrified roving of a beady eye.

Tonight, the crabs, which have been sourced from Fukui, Japan, and are prized for their sweetness and silky texture, will be ceremoniously shown to diners at Muku, a Michelin-starred restaurant in New York. They will then be split in half (still alive – fresh is best!) and cooked on a handsome hibachi-style ceramic grill. The crabs are one course in the fancy and formal kaiseki-inspired menus taking America’s coastal cities by storm.

“We want to show the seasonality, not by [just] showing the crab, but actually grilling the crab in front of you,” executive chef Manabu Asanuma tells me, gesturing to the creatures that lie trussed up on the table between us at his restaurant. To put it another way, as Asanuma says with a grin, “the customer is watching our show!”

Kaiseki is deeply ceremonial,with a set structure and a long history

Kaiseki is deeply ceremonial,with a set structure and a long history

In America, Japanese cuisine has long meant sushi, sushi and more sushi. And go to any sushi restaurant (from the priciest to the cheapest) and most will now offer an omakase menu. The concept – which means “I’ll leave it to [the chef],” but in the US has become synonymous with a procession of one-bite nigiri and sashimi – has become so commonplace and has lost so many standards in the process that it’s often little more than a marketing gimmick. Omakase, as Muku’s co-owner Rahul Saito explains, is oversaturated. “People have had enough… [they] are ready for a little bit........

© The Spectator