Aji

Should You Book Aji?

If you are deciding between Aji and Robuchon au Dôme for a special occasion dinner in Macau, the choice comes down to what you want the evening to feel like. Robuchon au Dôme gives you the grand room, the chandeliers, and the weight of French classical tradition. Aji, one floor up in MGM Cotai, gives you something more precise and personal: a Nikkei tasting menu built around first-rate Japanese produce, shaped by a young Singaporean chef, in a format where the counter seat is the seat to have. For a special occasion where the food itself is the point, Aji earns its Michelin star and its $$$$ price tag.

The Venue

Aji sits on the second floor of MGM Cotai, a property that leans heavily on visual drama, and the restaurant continues that instinct at a smaller scale. The room is counter-forward: the chef's table format is where the tasting menu plays out, and if you are booking for a celebration or a serious meal, that is the configuration to request. The plating is where the visual element does most of the work here. A dish like crispy-skinned shima aji, served with sauces built from matcha green tea and 20-year-old dried tangerine peel, is designed to be looked at before it is eaten. That combination also tells you what this kitchen is doing: the sourcing is Japanese in its specificity, the technique draws from French training, and the flavour logic is rooted in Asian pantry depth. The dried tangerine peel alone requires decades of patience to produce, which is not a detail you find on many menus at any price.

Chef Sihui Pan's approach is described as Nikkei, a term that covers Japanese-Peruvian fusion in its most common usage, but here the reference points are more accurately Japanese produce meeting French method and pan-Asian flavour referencing. The tasting menu is structured around the chef's own culinary memories, which gives the progression a narrative quality rather than a conventional course-by-course arc. Whether that framing resonates will depend on how much you engage with context at the table. What is objectively verifiable is that the sourcing decisions are the menu's strongest argument for its price. Ingredients like aged dried tangerine peel and premium-grade shima aji are not interchangeable with cheaper alternatives; their presence in a dish changes what the dish actually is.

The wine programme is one of the more serious in Macau. Wine Director Silven Wong and Sommelier Rick Wang oversee a list of 1,290 selections across 16,000 bottles, with strengths in Bordeaux, Burgundy, California, Italy, and Portugal. Pricing on the list runs to $$$, with many bottles above $100. The corkage fee is $38 if you prefer to bring something specific. For a Nikkei tasting menu, the pairing option that includes sake and hard liquor alongside red, white, and yellow wines is the more interesting route and matches the menu's cross-cultural logic better than a conventional wine pairing would.

Aji holds a Michelin one-star rating (2024), a World of Fine Wine 3-Star Accreditation, and ranked 342nd in Opinionated About Dining's Leading Restaurants in Asia in 2024, improving to 370th in the 2025 edition (the ranking expanded in scope). It carries a Google rating of 4.3 from 41 reviews. The OAD placement puts it in a competitive tier alongside venues like Chef Tam's Seasons and Jade Dragon in Macau, both of which carry more conventional Chinese fine dining credentials. Aji's case is different: it is the only venue in Macau's current fine dining set doing Nikkei at this level, which narrows the comparison set considerably. If that format interests you, there is no local alternative to fall back on. The closest global reference points would be something like Le Bernardin in New York for precision seafood execution or Atomix for the kind of cross-cultural narrative tasting menu format, though neither is a direct analogue.

Booking and Practical Details

Aji is open Wednesday through Monday, 6 PM to 11 PM, and is closed on Tuesdays. Dinner only. Given the Michelin star, the MGM Cotai hotel context, and the limited counter seating for the tasting menu format, this is a hard booking. Plan at least four to six weeks ahead for weekend dates, particularly if you want counter seats. Hotel guests at MGM Cotai may have a marginal advantage through concierge channels, but walk-in availability for the tasting menu counter should not be assumed. No dress code is listed in available data, but the price point and hotel-casino fine dining context suggest smart casual at minimum; formal attire is appropriate and common here.

Aji serves dinner only, which removes any lunch-versus-dinner question from the equation. For Macau fine dining context, see our full Macau restaurants guide. If you are building a broader trip, our Macau hotels guide, bars guide, and experiences guide are useful starting points. For comparable creative fine dining in mainland China, consider 102 House in Shanghai or Ru Yuan in Hangzhou. For Cantonese fine dining in the broader region, Imperial Treasure in Guangzhou and Dai Yuet Heen in Nanjing are worth considering if your itinerary extends beyond Macau.

Quick reference: Dinner only, Wed–Mon, 6–11 PM; closed Tuesday; $$$$ price range; hard to book; counter seats for tasting menu; wine list $$$, corkage $38.

How It Compares