Chef Gene Kato
Heads-up, Nashville: There is more James Beard Award-winning talent coming our way. AJ Capital Partners, which has been developing much of the Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood, has teamed up with Chicago-based Boka Restaurant Group to bring the lauded Momotaro to Nashville.
Momotaro Nashville will be a modern Japanese restaurant on the ground floor of AJ Capital Partners’ mixed-use project along Houston and Martin streets, across from Pastis, which the Scene reported on in April. In Chicago, Momotaro is a large, popular (if pricey) Japanese eatery with sushi, robatayaki, and impressive sake and whiskey lists. There’s an izakaya in the basement, too. The restaurant, which is at its best when experienced in a group, was named one of Esquire’s best new restaurants and secured a spot on the Chicago Tribune’s list of top restaurants in the city. Its kudos come with credentials. Chef Gene Kato is a Beard Award finalist and Boka Restaurant Group co-founders Kevin Boehm and Rob Katz are Beard Award-winners. The Nashville outpost, like the location in Chicago, will be designed by AvroKO, which has nabbed a James Beard Award for Best Restaurant Design (for its San Francisco project, China Live).
Kato grew up in Charlotte, N.C., and is looking forward to incorporating the ingredients and traditions of the South into Momotaro Nashville’s kitchen. Japanese restaurants in the U.S. tend to import a lot of ingredients, he explains, and being able to use a fresh Tennessee trout, for example, is appealing to him. “I like the idea of being in close connection to those rivers and being able to get something really fresh," he says. “What I am excited about is bringing Japanese food to Nashville while incorporating the larger Nashville food culture.”
While Japanese barbecue is not like Memphis barbecue — it’s not all about the sauce — Kato stresses that there are commonalities: “It is the art of using charcoal and different kinds of wood.”
The Momotaro Nashville announcement comes just days after Levy, the hospitality giant known for offering food and drink in sports and entertainment venues, announced it acquired a minority ownership stake in Boka. The acquisition should fund further expansion for Boka, which has partnerships with chefs Stephanie Izard and Michael Solomonov, in addition to Kato and others.
Momotaro Nashville is still in the early planning stages, so its size and menu specifics have not yet been ironed out. An opening date has not yet been announced.
