Uzuki

"In Greenpoint, a soba master is recognized at Uzuki." - Melissa McCart

"If you’re avoiding gluten, Uzuki in Greenpoint is a great spot for a hearty bowl of soba noodles that won’t make your stomach feel like it’s doing kickflips. The chef is a soba master, and you might overhear some noodle nerds fawning over the texture and the nutty flavor of the thin noodles. You can get them topped with $72 worth of sashimi, but for a more tame night, their towari soba is full of crunchy vegetables and a rich dashi." - hannah albertine, bryan kim, will hartman

"Uzuki serves pure buckwheat soba noodles and buckwheat-based snacks out of a warehouse-like space in Greenpoint’s Japanese microneighborhood. Prices range wildly from bowl to bowl: the menu’s splashier soba bowls have toppings like a boatload of sashimi, but the $32 uni shiosoba in rich duck broth is just as satisfying. They also have gluten-free soba beer, and you can hang out with a date in the lamp-lit room, admiring the ceramics that the chef made themselves. If you're looking for more Japanese gluten-free dishes in the immediate area, Acre and Dashi Okume both have good options." - neha talreja, bryan kim, hannah albertine

"Uzuki is Shuichi Kotani’s soba destination, finally, a standalone restaurant from the city’s soba master, who’s been supplying restaurants since 2008. One of the most popular dishes is the duck shio soba, made with duck four ways — roasted, confit, Beijing-style, and as a bone broth simmered for six hours and pepped up with yuzu. He tops the noodle soup with more duck, verdant buckwheat sprouts that he’s growing at the restaurant, boiled buckwheat seeds, spinach, and fried scallions. Don’t miss it." - Eater Staff

"Now, for New York City soba, there’s Uzuki, at 95 Guernsey Street near Norman Avenue, which just opened in an industrial-looking area in West Greenpoint, in a stretch that’s becoming its own Little Tokyo. The restaurant is run by soba master and consultant Shuichi Kotani, who moved here from Tokyo in 2008. From behind the soba counter, Kotani assembles bowls of soba from a menu that includes seven a la carte items and seven types of soba from $26 to $72, served in distinctive pottery he has fashioned himself. The most expensive order is a $72 bowl of noodles called the deluxe sashimi soba." - Robert Sietsema