“A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one”. It’s a quote whose second half is often cut in order to present a specific view of the world that is contrary to reality but easier to digest. If that wasn’t the case, society wouldn’t type cast people into one defining role with rather unsung nuance, save for the most complex of cases. Restaurants are often no different. When you recommend a place, you’ll quickly define it by its genre in order to convey what it is quickly. I’m guilty of this as well. However, with Blu Ember, describing them is difficult to sublime into a single statement and if I had to be reductive, it’d be this: It’s really good food.
Blu Ember, nestled in the ground floor of The Westin in Flushing, is the newest culinary concept from Balance Hospitality Group (MOLI, HINOKI, MIKU Sushi). The team here has truly created something that defies easy categorization. It’s not quite a steakhouse, though the meat program rivals many. It’s not just a sushi spot, though the toro alone could argue otherwise. And despite a menu sprawling with East Asian influences—Korean tartare, Thai-inflected pork cheek, Japanese binchotan grilling—it’s not a fusion free-for-all. Instead, it’s a restaurant that seems most at ease when it’s drawing no boundaries at all.
Before the meal started, I was genuinely taken aback by the ambience. I’m not one to award points for a nice interior, however, the elegant and incredibly polished conditions highlight the experience and dedication to quality that the team behind this have for the work they do. Stepping in Blu Ember is truly like walking into a Michelin-starred restaurant.
We began with the pork jowl, sweet and salty in a way that felt old-fashioned and familiar—like something you’d be served by an uncle who’s been braising pork for decades. Then came the Korean steak tartare, which arrived with slices of hearty, expertly buttered toast. It’s easy to mishandle raw beef—either under-seasoning or overwhelming it—but here, the dish struck a balance that felt genuinely refreshing. It even flirted with illusion: the beef, somehow, carried the clean, saline brightness of good tuna, leaving a refreshing taste on the palate. A rare sleight of hand.
Speaking of tuna, the toro here is wonderfully indulgent, just the way I like it. Served over crisp nori, the fatty richness of the fish is left mostly alone, needing no dressing up. The seaweed supports rather than competes, like a stage hand keeping the spotlight fixed on the star. This should come as no shock, especially considering they offer an Omakase tasting menu which I’ll need to come back to try at some point.
And then there’s the burger. Two smash patties, thoughtfully composed, somehow managing to be all flavor with none of the greasy aftermath. It’s the kind of dish that could have easily been a throwaway menu filler but instead feels like a sleeper hit. You could build a whole lunch menu around it and is the dish that will keep you coming back on a weekly basis.
Blu Ember’s ambition lies not just in what’s on the plate, but in how much ground it tries to cover. A sushi bar tucked into a serene alcove offers omakase with fish flown in from Toyosu. The open kitchen sends out charcoal-seared wagyu and octopus. There’s a seafood pasta, there’s a Thai-style sea bass, there’s a steakhouse menu complete with chimichurri and foie gras sauce. It’s a place where you could go with a table of six and all order something vastly different—and it would all somehow make sense.
What impressed me most, though, wasn’t any one dish. It was the cohesion amid the mix and the ease with which Blu Ember moves between culinary traditions without diluting any of them. For a group of friends with wide-ranging tastes or simply those prone to indecision, this might be the perfect table to gather around. Flushing is not short on restaurants worth visiting, but Blu Ember distinguishes itself by daring to be everything, and remarkably, pulling it off.
