Mikio Shinagawa, who as a painter studying Buddhism opened the Japanese restaurant Omen in the 1980s, which became a downtown New York canteen for figures from the art and fashion world, died Nov. 17 in a hospital in Kyoto. He was 66.
His sister Mariko Shimizu said the cause was liver cancer.
As fashionable New York haunts go, Omen was an unlikely candidate, and Mr. Shinagawa, a serene man with silver hair, raised in Kyoto, who wore Comme des Garçons suits, was his ethereal anti-restorer. When the city’s creative stars gathered at his restaurant to chat about sake, he glided through the place, offering hospitality with the lightness of a friendly ghost.
Located on Thompson Street in SoHo, Omen’s dark wooden space is lined with red brick walls and rice paper lanterns that glow as the music of John Coltrane and Miles Davis plays softly. The menu consists of Japanese country dishes and dishes such as chiso rice and udon noodles. Calligraphy framed above the tables contains brushstrokes that evoke the Japanese character mu, which means nothing.
It was in this earthly lair that Mr. Shinagawa’s haven for artists and intellectuals blossomed. Omen habits include Yoko Ono, Susan Sontag, David Byrne, Ingrid Sischy, Rem Koolhaas, Bill T. Jones, and Merce Cunningham.
While Julian Schnabel was starting a family, his children played at the table while he ate. Richard Gere can find comfort there, knowing paparazzi cameras don’t flash in his face. When Patti Smith comes over for a late bite, she might sing a song for the kitchen staff.
“When I came to Omen, I was drawn to the inner community,” Ms Smith said in a telephone interview. “You always saw famous people, but nobody bothered them, and that atmosphere came from Mikio. He imbued the air with an inner peace, and he served the artist. The lightness that emanated from him created a sense of belonging, which made you feel part of an abstract spiritual family.”
“The last time I saw Lou Reed alive was there,” she added. “He came in with Laurie Anderson, and there I said goodbye to Lou, at Omen.”
mr. Shinagawa paid no attention to his customers, but he could do little to hide it during New York Fashion Week, when the industry descended on Omen to discuss the shows with spicy tuna tartare. The restaurant’s fashionista aficionados include designers Karl Lagerfeld and Derek Lam, photographers Mario Sorrenti and duo Inez and Vinoodh, and Italian Vogue editor Franca Sozzani.
Mr. Shinagawa often commented that he never understood why his restaurant became a scene. Maybe his patrons enjoyed the harmonious atmosphere, or maybe they just loved his black cod marinated in miso. Whatever the reason, he didn’t think much about it.
“Why Omen?” he mused in a 2013 interview with T: DailyExpertNews Style Magazine. “I would like to know why Omen is so charming.”
He explained in a 2014 interview with the blog of the fashion brand Opening Ceremony.
“We are just the glass for them to come together,” he said. “I appreciate people with beautiful minds.”
In the years before Mr. Shinagawa opened his restaurant in 1981, SoHo was desolate and deserted, and the low rents enticed artists to settle in the cavernous lofts. From this Bohemia Omen arose, and over time it became a remnant of an older neighborhood, along with stallholders such as Raoul’s and Fanelli Cafe.
Mr. Shinagawa arrived in the city in the 1970s with the ambition to make it as a painter. He had traveled Europe and India in his teens, studying Buddhism and shaving his head. In his cramped studio in the meat processing district, he painted abstract works in solitude. Finally, his parents visited him.
In Japan, they ran the original Omen restaurant, which they founded in the 1960s with a health ethic, which became the first of three locations in Kyoto. In New York, they became alarmed by the American diet, so they threw their son on an idea.
“After two weeks, they felt that this community, this society, was so unhealthy,” said Mr Shinagawa. “They felt that American culture needed better food. So when they got back to Japan, they asked me if I wanted to run a restaurant here.
“It was a dynamite question. I did not know. I practiced Buddhism. But in the end I decided that everything we do in this life, even running a restaurant, can be an exercise to make life richer and more beautiful.”
Mr. Shinagawa enlisted artisans from Japan to build Omen’s rustic interior and named the restaurant after what became the signature udon dish. Little by little, Omen became a meeting place.
Early regulars included Mr. Gere and Meryl Streep. In 1982, the restaurant received a DailyExpertNews review from Mimi Sheraton, praising the “satisfying aesthetic rewards in the artfully arranged, delicately flavored vegetable, fish, noodle and chicken dishes.” Takeout from Omen soon began showing up at Steven Meisel and Barry Lategan’s fashion photo shoots.
But even as Mr. Shinagawa’s restaurant turned into a downtown institution, and even as New York City changed dramatically, one thing stayed the same: It’s never been very difficult to get a reservation at Omen.
Mikio Shinagawa was born on February 19, 1955 in Kyoto into a family of noble descent dating back to the Asuka period. His father, Tetsuzan, was a respected calligraphy artist. His mother, Tomi (Okada) Shinagawa, opened the family restaurant after sampling her mother-in-law’s country dishes in the mountainous Gunma Prefecture. As a boy, Mikio watched his mother prepare an omen with fragrant broth for customers.
In 1998, he published a book of his father’s calligraphy, ‘Talk to a Stone’, with an introduction by the Dalai Lama. The calligraphy hanging on Omen’s walls was drawn by his father.
In addition to his sister Mariko, Mr. Shinagawa’s two brothers survived, Hiroshi and Masaki, and another sister, Kyoko Nakamura.
In his late forties, Mr. Shinagawa became a founding member of the Japanese restaurant Matsuri, which occupied an underground space in the Maritime Hotel in Manhattan; a few years later, he designed the Shibui Spa, located in Robert De Niro’s Greenwich Hotel, which was built with parts he salvaged from an old Japanese farmhouse.
In 2013, he learned that he had cancer.
In recent months, Mr. Shinagawa has been busy preparing for Omen’s 40th anniversary, which took place last week. At an intimate memorial held at the restaurant Friday, patrons recited obeisances to him and Ms. Smith sang an a cappella version of her song “Wing.” His sister Mariko, who helps run Omen, came over from Japan to oversee the transition of his company, which his cousin Kota will now run.
Though Mr. Shinagawa tended to shrug off questions about why Omen became a much-loved downtown institution, his sister formed her own mind.
“Mikio led Omen, but he was also an artist at heart,” she said. “Because he had creativity in him, he understood artists. Whether it was Jasper Johns or Richard Gere, they could tell he understood what it means to create.”
“It was a natural connection,” she added. “The kind of connection that is almost impossible to express in words.”
