$200 tuna-cutting dining events offer ‘point of connection’ with sushi culture

Raquel Livingston’s recent dinner at New York’s Koete Omakase wasn’t like most other nights out for Japanese food. For one thing, she says, it felt more like a “biology class with a tasty reward.” The software engineer attended a $218 dinner built around a chef breaking down a whole tuna. She was surprised by how much she learned: The restaurant distributed a pamphlet with a diagram to highlight the rarest cuts.

Livingston left with even more fresh tuna — enough for two subsequent nights. By the third day, “it was a little overwhelming,” she says. She and her boyfriend still enjoyed the rolls they made that night.