お任せ
おまかせ
omakase
= leaving a choice up to someone else; (in dining) a chef’s-choice meal
お任せ is the small act of trust behind some of Japan’s best meals: you set down the menu, look at the chef, and say, in effect, I’ll leave it to you.
お任せ means entrusting a decision to another person. In daily life you can leave plans, choices, or arrangements to someone with this word. In restaurants, especially sushi counters, an お任せ meal is one where the chef selects and serves the courses rather than you ordering from a menu. The word signals confidence in the other person’s judgment and a willingness to be guided.
お任せ is genuinely polite and useful, but at a restaurant be aware that an お任せ course often has no fixed price and can run high, so it is fine to ask the budget in advance. In conversation, お任せします (I’ll leave it to you) is a graceful way to defer, though leaning on it for every decision can come across as passive, so use it where trust is the point.
お任せ joins the polite prefix お to 任せ, from the verb 任せる, meaning to entrust or leave something to someone. The character 任 carries the sense of duty, charge, or responsibility, so 任せる is to place a matter in another’s hands. The honorific お softens it into a courteous, everyday expression.
Everyday use
店の場所はどこでもいいよ、君にお任せする。
Mise no basho wa doko demo ii yo, kimi ni omakase suru.
Anywhere is fine for the restaurant, I’ll leave it up to you.
Casual / Social Media
せっかくの寿司屋だし、今日はお任せで頼んでみよう。
Sekkaku no sushiya dashi, kyou wa omakase de tanonde miyou.
Since it’s a proper sushi place, let’s order the chef’s choice today.
Formal / Cultural context
細部の手配につきましては、御社にお任せいたします。
Saibu no tehai ni tsukimashite wa, onsha ni omakase itashimasu.
As for the finer arrangements, we will leave them in your company’s hands.
The dining sense of お任せ rests on a relationship of trust between guest and chef. At a sushi counter, ordering お任せ lets the chef serve what is freshest that day, in the order and pace they judge best, often adjusting to the diner’s reactions. It turns a meal into a kind of guided experience and is widely seen as the ideal way to enjoy a skilled chef’s work.
More broadly, お任せ reflects a cultural comfort with delegating to those presumed to have expertise or appropriate standing. Leaving a decision to a host, a senior, or a specialist can be a polite gesture rather than mere indecision, expressing respect for their judgment. The same spirit that makes a sushi お任せ feel special runs through these smaller, everyday acts of entrusting.