# NYC Tasting Menus 2026: What They Cost, How to Book

_Published 2026-07-17 on DinnerElite (https://dinnerelite.com/blog/nyc-tasting-menus)._

A tasting menu is a fixed, chef-directed sequence of courses served to the whole table, and in New York it runs from $75 per person at Atoboy to $1,200 at Masa's Chef's Reserve counter, a sixteenfold spread. We confirmed both ends of that range on the restaurants' own menus. The price is the easy part, though. What separates a tasting menu booking from a normal dinner reservation is the money: many of these rooms take your card in full weeks before you eat, and a few will not refund it. Below, you'll find what these menus cost, who makes you prepay, and when the tables actually drop. Every price and policy here comes from the restaurant's own website or its own booking listing, checked July 17, 2026.

## What does a tasting menu cost in NYC?

Anywhere from $75 to $1,200 per person, and the middle is thinner than the extremes suggest. At the accessible end, [Atoboy](/reservations/587) runs a $75 prix fixe, [Cote](/reservations/72271) serves its four-cut Butcher's Feast at $82, Hearth charges $110 for its family-style nine dishes, [Dirt Candy](/reservations/29371) is $118 for five courses, 63 Clinton is $130, Musket Room's Chef's Choice is $135, and Corima is $140 for 10 to 13 courses. The trophy tier starts around $225 and climbs fast: Cote's Steak Omakase $225, Nōksu and L'Abeille's Menu Signature both $255, Huso $285, Atera $325, Jungsik $335, [Le Bernardin](/reservations/1387) $350 for the Chef's Tasting, Aska $375, [Eleven Madison Park](/reservations/70928) and [Atomix](/reservations/69815) both $385, Per Se $425, Sushi Noz $550 at either of its counters. Masa sits alone at the top with lunch at $495, a $750 dinner table, a $950 Hinoki counter, and the $1,200 Chef's Reserve. Assume tax and tip are extra, because they nearly always are. Bar Miller adds tax plus a 20% gratuity to its $250, and Sushi Noz says plainly that gratuity is in neither its price nor its deposit. Dirt Candy is the lone exception we found: its $118 includes the tip, not the tax, because it pays its cooks an hourly wage instead.

## Which NYC tasting menus make you pay up front?

This is the split that actually changes how you book, and it tracks the platform more than the price. Tock rooms lean prepaid: Jungsik ($335), Atomix, and Atera all charge the full menu at booking, with sales final. Sushi Noz bills its $550 the moment you book, on SevenRooms rather than Tock, so the pattern is a habit and not a rule. A second group takes a deposit instead, smaller but still real money: Per Se holds $200 per person and applies it to your bill, Saga takes a non-refundable $100, Frevo $150, and Aquavit $50. A third group charges nothing up front but keeps your card for the no-show, which is the friendliest version of this. Dirt Candy bills $50 per person if you cancel inside 24 hours, L'Abeille $75, and Aska says outright that it charges you at the restaurant. A fourth group, The Modern, Gabriel Kreuther, and Jean-Georges, publishes no prepayment terms at all. Watch for a fifth category that looks free but is not: Eleven Madison Park, César, and Nōksu take no prepayment yet state that all sales are final. For you, that is a ticket with extra steps.

## When do NYC tasting menu reservations drop?

Most of the hard ones drop monthly, which means you get twelve chances a year rather than a rolling window. Eleven Madison Park, Per Se, and Saga all release the following month on the 1st, though none of the three publishes a time, so you are guessing at the hour. Aska is more useful about it and states noon ET on the first day of the prior month. Frevo names its drops outright, with its August window opening August 1 at 6:00 PM. Rolling windows are friendlier: The Modern opens 28 days ahead at noon ET, Nōksu goes 30 days out at noon, and Atera releases about six weeks ahead, in one case at 4:00 AM local, which is the least civilized drop time we found. The outlier is Chef's Table at Brooklyn Fare, which takes no online bookings at all. You call 718-243-0050 on Mondays at 10:30am for dates six weeks out, and only for parties of two or four.

## Which NYC tasting menus are hardest to book?

The hardest rooms are hard for structural reasons, not because they are expensive. Chef's Table at Brooklyn Fare is the worst of them: phone only, one window a week, and party sizes of two or four or nothing. Atomix is a 14-seat counter that drops an entire month of prepaid inventory in a single instant, and when we checked on July 17, 2026, both its counter and its bar tasting were sold out. Sushi Sho seats eight at its Hinoki counter and releases one dated drop a month. Sushi Noz runs on the same math from the other direction: eight seats at its Hinoki counter, six in its Ash Room, four seatings a night, and your $550 charged before you walk in. Per Se's February inventory was "almost completely gone shortly after being released," per Ryan Sutton in [The LO Times](https://www.thelotimes.com/p/per-se-french-laundry-price-hike-thomas-keller). Price is not difficulty. [Le Bernardin](/blog/what-to-order-at-le-bernardin) and Jean-Georges appear on every hardest-tables list, but neither publishes a scarcity mechanic, and we will not claim one they have not stated.

## Are NYC tasting menus getting more expensive?

Yes, and the receipts are dated. Eleven Madison Park went from $365 to $385 in April 2026 and dropped its shorter six-course option, Aska went $325 to $375, Corima climbed from $98 to $125 in 2025 and then to $140 in February 2026, and 63 Clinton went $112 to $130. Ryan Sutton reported all of it in [The LO Times](https://www.thelotimes.com/p/eleven-madison-park-new-menu-price-hike-2026) on March 12, 2026. Per Se's jump from $390 to $425 landed a year earlier, on January 1, 2025. The format itself is under argument. Slate's Jaya Saxena asked [who the tasting menu is even for anymore](https://slate.com/life/2026/02/tasting-menu-restaurants-near-me-reservations.html) on February 28, 2026, noting that only 2 of Eater's 15 Best New Restaurants and 3 of Bon Appétit's 20 were tasting-only. Meanwhile Eleven Madison Park ended its four-year vegan-only run on October 14, 2025, [by its own announcement](https://www.elevenmadisonpark.com/stories/menu-update). The top tier is climbing and the cheap tier is growing, and the middle is where rooms are quietly giving the format up.

## Frequently asked questions

### What is the cheapest tasting menu in NYC?

Atoboy's $75 prix fixe is the lowest we verified against a restaurant's own menu. Resy's guide counts [24 New York tasting menus under $100](https://blog.resy.com/guides/best-new-york-tasting-menus-under-100/), which is a good starting list with one catch: the prices drift. That guide still shows Hearth at $95 when Hearth's own site says $110. Check the restaurant's own menu the same week you book.

### How many Michelin stars are there in New York?

The 2025 New York guide, published November 18, 2025, awards three stars to five restaurants: Eleven Madison Park, Jungsik, Le Bernardin, Per Se, and Sushi Sho, which was the new entry. Fourteen more hold two stars in the five boroughs. Blue Hill at Stone Barns often turns up on New York lists but sits in Westchester, so it is not one of them.

### Do I have to pay for a tasting menu in advance?

At many of them, yes. Jungsik, Atomix, Atera, and Sushi Noz charge the full menu when you book, and Per Se, Saga, Frevo, and Aquavit hold a deposit. Aska charges nothing until you eat, and Dirt Candy only bills you if you cancel late. Read the terms before you click, because a prepaid booking you cannot use is a total loss rather than a cancelled dinner.

### Is a Restaurant Week menu a tasting menu?

No, though people mix up the words constantly. Restaurant Week is a prix fixe: two courses at lunch or three at dinner, at $30, $45, or $60. A tasting menu is a longer chef-directed sequence, often 10 courses or more, at several times the price. The two barely overlap, and our [Restaurant Week map guide](/blog/nyc-restaurant-week-2026-map) covers the prix-fixe side.

### What if the tasting menu I want is sold out?

Sold out on a drop day is normal, and it is not the end of it. Cancellations put tables back, which is the whole reason alert services exist. DinnerElite watches Resy and OpenTable across 224 of NYC's hardest-to-book restaurants, Eleven Madison Park, Atomix, Le Bernardin, and Corima among them, and emails you the moment a table opens. Start with the [free plan](/premium).

Tasting menus are the one category where booking the table costs real money before you taste anything, so know the terms and the drop time before you chase one. See [when each restaurant releases tables](/reservations), or the [full ranking of NYC's hardest reservations](/hardest-restaurant-reservations-nyc).