“This is my whole life and I love it,” says Samuel Clonts, chef of Bar Uchū, a new one-starred addition to the latest MICHELIN Guide New York City. “It never feels overwhelming or that I made the wrong decision. It’s everything I do.”
The Arizona native got his culinary feet wet when he was 15 years old working in restaurants in Tuscon. “Somehow I knew it was the career I wanted.” Clonts was receptive to his high school culinary arts teacher, who exposed him to what this career could be like. “Also my first chef and sous chef really instilled in me early the importance of ‘if you’re going to do something, make sure you’re doing it right, otherwise it’s not worth doing at all.’”
Clonts was 18 when he moved to New York City, giving himself one year to get his foot in the door and work with the best of the best. “When I ate at Chef’s Table [at Brooklyn Fare], I knew this was the best.” Week after week, Clonts returned to Chef’s Table to beg for a job. Finally, he got one and started cooking Japanese-inspired cuisine. “That was kind of my first exposure, and traveling and going to Japan and just being exposed that really drove me to decide that this is what I wanted to focus on.
“When it comes to food,” he furthers, “there’s so much about honoring and being very respectful—this fish gave a life, let’s do it the most justice that we can.” Clonts likens the cuisine of small izakayas in Japan to any three-Michelin-starred restaurant. “To them, it’s just how it’s done. You treat everyone the best that you can. You never feel unwelcome.”
Uchū opened in June of 2017 in Manhattan’s Lower East Side; the restaurant has a 10-seat sushi counter helmed by chef Eiji Ichimura. Clonts runs the 8-seat kaiseki counter. “Obviously I’m not Japanese, and I’m not trying to create or say that I’m doing a traditional Japanese meal,” he firmly states. “But I thought it was such a beautiful format for a meal that I wanted to serve my version of it.”
At the kaiseki counter, guests can expect dishes like Siberian sturgeon caviar handrolls, Miyazaki Wagyu beef, Hokkaido uni and a soufflé with warm roasted strawberries and matcha ice cream for dessert.
“You’ll see little plays on things, things that are meant to be fun and eaten with your hands,” he says. Guests can also see Clonts’s so-called “obsession” with colors throughout the dishes, plateware and flowers.
“That interaction between cooking for people and giving it directly to them—it’s one of the purest feelings I’ve ever felt,” he says. “It’s why I love having this format of only having eight people at one time. I really feel a connection with every person I’m cooking for.”
As far as the typical stress and push that chefs often feel, Clonts is in love. “You’re never really satisfied with anything, and that’s sort of the dark side of that world,” he says. “But you can use it and harness it to push yourself to be better and better everyday, and put your heart and soul into what you’re doing.”
Now 25 years old, Clonts can only thank those around him.
“It’s such a big change from where I was 10 years ago,” he says. “I knew I wanted big things, but it’s finally coming together.”
Video and photos shot by Kathryn M. Sheldon, an award-winning producer, photographer and editor with a background in still photography and television production. Having produced food and beverage content for seven years at NBC, she is currently producing video content for the MICHELIN Guide.
