July 19, 2013 — Sushi lovers in Greenwich, Connecticut, and New York City are getting a raw deal, with both cities ranking among the most costly locales in the U.S. for the Japanese cuisine.
The price of basic sushi at New York restaurants was about 26 percent higher than the national average this year, topping the Sushinomics Cost-of-Living Index for the second straight year. The measure, compiled by Bloomberg Rankings, is based on prices for spicy tuna and California rolls — the two most common items — at restaurants in 28 major cities. Greenwich topped the new Sushinomics Premium Priced Index, which ranked the cities by their restaurants’ most expensive sushi rolls.
New York’s basic sushi prices were 3.3 percent higher than those in second-place Los Angeles. San Francisco, Dallas, and Austin, Texas, rounded out the top five most expensive cities. The U.S.’s cheapest sushi city was New Orleans, which was 23 percent below the national average.
“New York is New York: You have to pay rent, and anywhere you go you’re going to pay a ton of money,” said Guy Vaknin, sushi chef and owner of Beyond Sushi in New York’s Meatpacking District. “So to make up for it, prices go up.”