The long-awaited Japanese restaurant is full of surprises.
Which means: There can be only one dining room serving food.From Ciccone’s persistence, chef Sekiguchi and his wife Hiroko Sekiguchi left New York City mid-pandemic and moved to Dallas. Sekiguchi is a fourth-generation sushi chef who most recently worked at one-Michelin-starred restaurant Sushi Yasuda.
Ciccone loved that restaurant. Their new Dallas restaurant, opening May 25, 2022, brings elements of the chef’s New York City eatery to Ciccone’s home state of Texas. And, it’s Sekiguchi’s next effort to bring a Michelin-level restaurant to a state with none. Chef Tatsuya Sekiguchi, who goes by Tatsu, moved to Dallas from New York City. He was raised in Japan and is the fourth-generation sushi chef in his family. The owner and chef are calmly confident that Tatsu’s omakase experience will serve sustainable fish in an elegant setting focused on reverence and respect for the food. Ciccone balks at the “have it your way” model of fast-food restaurants today — places that operate unsustainably and are driven by low prices instead of quality products. Rather than “have it your way,” Ciccone says, “let’s go back to the old way.” Chef Sekiguchi’s style of preparing sushi is called edomae and uses 200-year-old techniques to preserve fish. The lounge at Tatsu is delicately decorated by owner Matthew Ciccone's wife Stephanie Ciccone via her design studio Boulevard Interiors. The dining room is more understated, which puts the emphasis on the food. Ciccone is a plant-based eater who almost never indulges in the raw fish that Sekiguchi prepares. Ciccone is fixated on sustainable eating and suitable portion sizes and says Tatsu can deliver on both. So, two times a year, he’ll allow himself to savor Sekiguchi’s food for a special occasion.That’s right: The owner of this Japanese restaurant will eat here just one time this year, when it opens. Diners should expect about 18 courses of food, mostly raw fish, prepared right in front of them by Sekiguchi and assistant chef Jon Griffiths. They’ve purchased a special freezer just for tuna. Ciccone ordered it mid-pandemic, after a hospital didn’t need it to keep their COVID-19 vaccines cold. Dinner costs $170 per person, and an 18% service fee is added to every bill. Reservations are for one of two dinner shifts, at 5:30 or 7:45 p.m., and the meal is expected to last 1 hour and 45 minutes. It’s the second restaurant in Dallas serving omakase inside a tiny dining room. Unaffiliated restaurantAt a special tasting in July 2021, sushi chef Tatsuya Sekiguchi served some of the food he would make when his restaurant Tatsu opened the following year. That restaurant, in Deep Ellum, is now ready for a quiet, confident debut. Getting to Tatsu feels like a little bit of a secret, too: There’s no valet — a rarity in Dallas — because the Continental Gin Building has a generous parking lot out front, just off of Elm Street. Diners will find Tatsu off to one side of the building, with the front door leading to an art piece of an original wooden door from 1888 that’s been tagged with street art. Past that little vestibule is a lounge, then two rooms with sushi bars. They won’t be used at the same time because, again: “There’s only one Tatsu.” And should we share the secret about the restrooms? They’ve got Toto toilets in there, a way to prove that this restaurant cares about its guests, wherever they’re sitting.Tatsu is at 3309 Elm St., Dallas, on the first floor of the Continental Gin Building.For more food news, follow Sarah Blaskovich on Twitter at
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