After clinching back-to-back victories on Top Chef Seasons 19 and 20, Chef Buddha Lo, a native Australian, opened Hüso in February 2025. Situated in Tribeca, you enter through Marky’s Caviar, a boutique renowned for its premium selections, including Lo’s own Saint Urgeon line. The restaurant’s name, derived from the Latin term for Beluga sturgeon, pays homage to its caviar-centric roots. The dining room is airy, minimalist yet cozy, and just below is a kitchen, while expansive has the very same feel.
Culture Editor Adam Josephs visits with Chef Buddha Lo.
Hüso is the perfect gateway drug to fine dining tasting menus—and caviar. At $265 for twelve courses, it’s a strong value: generous, surprising, and full of miniature marvels. Marketed as “caviar-centric”—no surprise— it delivers on that promise.
Kaluga hybrid caviar, among the finest produced in the U.S., finds its most elegant presentation in Chef Buddha Lo’s Fabergé-ish egg. A shimmering, glacial-blue orb appears tableside, gorgeously presented and filled with a lush, briny treasure. Just three spoonfuls, and it’s gone, but the memory lingers.
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Caviar appears again in multiple early courses, some delicate to a fault, visually intricate, but lacking the deeper flavor layering that comes later in the meal, one of the pitfalls of a produce-centered course. But then again, it’s gorgeous caviar. The turning point arrives with foie gras paired with buttery brioche that’s gently toasted and crisp at the edges. Lush.
I ordered the truffle add-on, which gave a very generous portion of shaved black truffle on pretty much every course. What’s not to love about truffles? The scallops course is wonderfully engineered, but unfortunately, it was drowned out by the avalanche of truffles. These well-thought-out courses are best eaten as they are designed when they come out of the kitchen. That’s $90 you can save and put toward the wine pairing. The portions were so generous that I could easily share half of each course’s truffle allotment with my dining partner without missing anything. This is the very definition of first-world problems.
The duck is a standout. Photo credit: Adam Josephs.
The duck stands out not just in execution but also in intent. Before it ever hits the pan, the dry aging and fennel, Sumac, and cumin seasoning have already done their work—tightening the meat, layering the flavoring, and building character. What arrives on the plate is all depth and Peking duck-level crackle. The lamb is excellent, but the duck is the dish that proves this Chef knows exactly what he’s doing.
I had so much fun with the staff. For those who don’t know, critics go into restaurants incognito, although not necessarily low profile. I am a lifelong lover of dinner theater, so I made a request strictly as a civilian to sit at the Chef’s table adjacent to the kitchen. Unfortunately, someone had pre-reserved it, but the staff proactively arranged for a pre-dinner tour, cocktail, and hanging out in the kitchen to watch the feverish tweezer skills of the chefs as they meticulously craft each dish before sending it upstairs.
A special shout-out to Michael, who shepherded us around the kitchen and provided wonderful cocktails like Hüso’s Blood Orange Sour. The joy continued at the table. Sara was our lead server and stand-in sommelier. She made us smile every time she introduced a new meal, let alone a wine. They should name a new breakfast cereal after her.
The wine pairing leans hard into champagne—three caviar courses’ worth. It’s enjoyable, though with that much caviar, it seems a missed opportunity, not to introduce us to less classic pairings. The 2023 Bergström Reserve Pinot Noir, poured with the
duck, makes the best pairing of the night. It’s my new favorite $50 bottle of wine.
And then there’s the gorgeous dessert: Padma Lakshmi’s self-declared “favorite dessert ever,” featuring apricot, sheep’s milk yogurt, and the famous lacy honey tuile.
In the spirit of uninvited advice: a four-course dinner with a Kaluga starter, foie gras, entrée-sized scallops or duck, and that dreamy tuiled dessert could become a habit.
Chef Buddha Lo offers a finely tuned evening in a small, airy jewel box of a space, supported by an enthusiastic and caring team. As Tom Colicchio says in what’s become a beloved Top Chef trope, “People come in for the food, and they come back for the service.” That is very much the case here. The team is only three months into their open-ended run with lots of time to tune and expand the menu. Even now, with just a few trims, Hüso is Michelin-star-bound.
©️Adam Josephs, 2025
