Austin Japanese Restaurant Import Brings More Smoke and Fire to Houston in May

Austin-based restaurant Uchiko is bringing more Japanese-influenced heat to Houston in May.

Located in retail development Zadok’s Post Oak Place at 1801 Post Oak Blvd, Suite 110, the Houston outpost will open Monday, May 23. The menu will include “clean” flavors that its sister restaurant — the lauded sushi restaurant Uchi — is known for, infused with smoke and hints of char in many of its dishes, according to a release.

Owner and executive chef Tyson Cole and chef de cuisine Shaun King have incorporated a special yakitori grill into the kitchen. Often used to sear Japanese street food, this grill will use Post Oak and binchotan wood to smoke, sear, and cure meats, vegetables, and fish that make up Uchiko’s menu.

Highlights include new dishes like the dry-aged duck, made with hoisin and a salted and hearth-roasted cabbage; charred onion aged “Bar N Ranch” beef that is seared four times and served with foie au poivre; and suzuki yaki, a grilled Mediterranean sea bass, with brown butter dashi, fennel, and herbs.

The restaurant will also offer chef’s tasting or signature tasting omakase menus, along with Uchi menu favorites, like the hama chili hotate crudo made with scallop and turnip, and the P-38 hand roll, made with Japanese yellowtail, avocado, yuzu kosho, sweet green onion, and cilantro.

Dessert will also be a draw, with Ariana Quant, executive pastry chef for Uchi and Uchiba, dishing out binchotan toasted s’mores and baba au took whisky, a confection made with charred pineapple.

In addition to beer, sake, and wine, guests can also indulge in flavorful Japanese whiskys and distilled shochu, or opt for creative cocktails, like the whisky-based Fujin, made with homemade smoked fig and allspice liqueur; the Kusuri with Bourbon ginger syrup, lemon, and tamari whisky; or the tea-smoked martini, featuring gin concentrate, jasmine tea, and a second gin.

Uchiko’s Houston outpost will be the restaurant’s second location — the original opened in Austin in 2010 — and Austin-based restaurant group Hai Hospitality’s third establishment to launch in the city, joining Uchi, which opened in 2012, and Loro Heights, which opened in February. Loro’s second Houston location is also slated to open in Rice Village next summer.