Umeko NYC Reservations: When Tables Open, Walk-Ins, the $48 Fee

Umeko is a Japanese restaurant at 63 Downing Street in the West Village, from the team behind Ume, the Williamsburg sushi spot where you build your own omakase from a platter. It does one thing: a seasonal don, fish over rice, served as a $48 prix fixe set that every guest orders. The Infatuation first reviewed it in January 2026. Its dinner tables are hard to get; its afternoon seatings, as of November 2026, are surprisingly easy. If you are searching from somewhere else, check you have the right one: other restaurants share the name or nearly do (Resy alone lists an UMIKO in Madrid), and this guide is about the Downing Street room. It covers how it books as of November 2026: the platform, the release, the seatings and seating types, the $48 cancellation fee, walk-ins, and a worked date.

Is Umeko on Resy?

Yes, and only Resy. The Reservation page on umekony.com has a single button, “Make A RESERVATION HERE,” and it opens Umeko’s Resy page. The restaurant does not take bookings by phone, or calls of any kind: its Resy note says “Please text us only at (646) 866-8012. We do not accept phone calls.” Groups of nine or more email hello@umekony.com. SnagRes, a tracker, also says Resy is the only platform it books on, and the restaurant links to no other booking site.

When do Umeko reservations open?

At midnight Eastern, 29 days ahead. The restaurant’s own word, on its Resy page, is short: “Reservations are released 30 days in advance.” It gives no time. The trackers fill that in, and they disagree: SnagRes, updated November 1, 2026, and JustReservd both say 29 days ahead at 12:00am Eastern, while AutoRes says 30 days at 11am. “30 days” and “29 days ahead” are the same rule if you count today as day one; the hour was the real question.

The calendar settles the count. At about 11:25pm on Sunday, November 1, 2026, Resy’s calendar for Umeko ran through Monday, November 30, 29 days ahead (Resy shows Mondays as closed, so that date had no tables). At 12:01am on Monday, November 2, the calendar had grown by one day: Tuesday, December 1 was there, with every lunch and dinner seating open for two. So the release is at midnight, and AutoRes’s 11am is wrong. The rule: take your date, count back 29 days, and be on Resy at 12:00am on that day, which means late the night before. How Resy’s release hours vary by restaurant is in what time does Resy release reservations.

A worked example. Say you want dinner on Friday, December 18, 2026. Count back 29 days and you land on Thursday, November 19. The date opens at 12:00am that Thursday, so be on the Resy page late on Wednesday night, November 18, signed in with a card saved. Pick the seating type before the clock turns: on Saturday, November 28, about three days after it opened, the 6:30pm and 6:45pm dinner seatings were already gone. One date opens each night, so a missed midnight costs you one date.

Seatings and the three ways to sit

Umeko seats in fixed turns. Sunday, November 29, about two days after it opened, still had every seating free for two, which shows the full set: 1pm, 1:15pm, 2:30pm and 2:45pm at lunch, and 5pm, 5:15pm, 6:30pm, 6:45pm, 8:15pm and 8:30pm at dinner, so 8:30pm is the last table. The Resy note says dining time “may be limited to approximately 90-100 minutes,” and guests should arrive within five minutes: “We hold all reservations for five minutes only.” Each time is offered in three seating types, and you choose one when you book:

Dining Room is ordinary tables and chairs in the middle of the room. Island is bar-style seating around a small garden of real plants, side by side rather than across from each other, which the restaurant suggests for smaller parties. Bamboo Floor Seating is a raised, tatami-style platform where you take your shoes off before sitting. Resy’s own blurb says to book the bamboo floor if you can. It was also the scarcest when I looked: on Saturday, November 28, no bamboo floor seat was left at dinner, while the dining room and island still had 5pm and 8:15pm tables.

How hard is Umeko to book? Lunch versus dinner

It depends almost entirely on the hour. On the night of November 1, Umeko had nothing at all for two until Wednesday, November 4, and on that date only one slot, a 2:45pm lunch at the island. Friday, November 6 was sold out. That is the near week. Further out, lunch holds up: Saturday, November 28 still had 2:30pm and 2:45pm in every seating type about three days after it opened, while the middle of dinner was gone.

SnagRes’s longer record points the same way. It says 92% of the open slots it logged were before 6pm, that the time that opens most often is 2:45pm, and that only 5% fell between 7pm and 8:30pm. It also found a table for two on 85% of its Wednesday checks against 17% on Saturdays. The practical version, which matches SnagRes’s own advice: if you can eat at 1pm or 2:45pm, book a few days ahead on a weekday and you will usually find something. If it has to be 6:30pm on a Saturday, be on Resy at midnight 29 days out, or wait for a cancellation.

Party size, the $48 prix fixe and the $48 fee

Resy takes parties of one to eight; for nine or more, the note says to email hello@umekony.com. Everyone at the table eats the set: “All guests will automatically be subject to the prix fixe menu of $48pp upon dining.” The menu is built around fish and the note says it cannot accommodate vegan or vegetarian diets, so check before you bring someone who does not eat fish. The cancellation policy is strict and matches the price of the meal: “A $48 per person cancellation fee will apply to any reservation canceled within 12 hours of the reservation time. There are no exceptions to this policy. Refunds will not be issued under any circumstance.” The note adds that the fee applies to late cancellations for allergy reasons too, and that the kitchen cannot promise a meal free of shellfish, gluten or other allergens. The 12-hour line is shorter than the 24 hours many hard rooms use, which suggests tables come back closer to the night itself; how other restaurants set theirs is in restaurant cancellation policies.

Does Umeko take walk-ins?

Yes, in the restaurant’s own words: “Walk-ins are welcome based on availability.” There is no separate walk-in bar, so a walk-in means taking a seat nobody booked or one freed by a no-show, and the five-minute hold means a late party’s seat can go to whoever is waiting. The sensible way to try is to arrive as one or two people just before a seating starts, 1pm, 2:30pm, 5pm, 6:30pm or 8:15pm, rather than in the middle of one. That is a reading of the turns, not a promise from the restaurant. Lunch, which still has open times a few days out, is the better bet, and Monday is out because Umeko is closed. Other hard rooms where the door works are in NYC hard restaurants that take walk-ins.

What the $48 set gets you

The idea, in the restaurant’s words, is “focusing on a single fish don at a time,” with a chirashi don that “follows the season.” Its Resy page says the featured fish at the moment is tuna, and the website labels the current menu “Season 1 | Winter 26’.” The Infatuation describes two choices, one built on the seasonal fish (four kinds of tuna on its visit) and a chirashi don, each with miso soup or tea, a few side dishes and nori for making hand rolls, and suggests coming as two so you can order one of each. The à la carte list runs from $20 to $60 on the website and includes cut rolls that The Infatuation found piled with ikura or spicy tuna. For a West Village sushi night with a very different booking problem, see Sushi Nakazawa reservations, a short walk away on Commerce Street.

Watching Umeko’s Resy calendar

A prime Umeko dinner comes down to being on its Resy page at the right moment: midnight, 29 days before your date, or whenever someone gives back a 6:30pm table before the 12-hour line. SeatSwiper watches Resy, SevenRooms and OpenTable, and Umeko books on Resy, so one watch covers the release and the cancellations after it. Set the date, party size and the seatings you would take, and it books the table the moment one opens or someone cancels, so you are not refreshing at midnight. It books on your own Resy account, in your name, for your own dinner, and nothing is resold or transferred. It can’t get your account banned, because it books on your own account and checks every few minutes, never nonstop. The first booking is free. After that it is a flat $5, charged only when it actually books the table, with no subscription. A cancellation watch on a date that is already full costs $1 to start, charged when the watch begins even if no table ever opens; that $1 is not covered by the free first booking and is not refunded, and the same $5 applies if the watch wins you the table. The honest limits: it only works on those three platforms, it needs your Resy login to book in your name, it can lose a race for a single table, and it cannot stand at the door for a walk-in seat or pick the bamboo floor for you if only the island is left.