One of the country's most decorated restaurant groups is making its Nashville debut not with one opening but two on the same night, in the same Wedgewood Houston building.
This Friday, June 5, James Beard Award-winning Boka Restaurant Group brings both Momotaro, the celebrated modern Japanese restaurant from Chef Gene Kato, and Middleman, a whiskey-forward cocktail bar, to the ground floor of a 170,000-square-foot building along Houston and Martin Streets — the latest pieces of AJ Capital Partners' 18-acre Wedgewood Village development. A third concept, the Italian eatery Alla Vita, is set to follow, completing a trio of distinct rooms under one roof.
Momotaro arrives with a serious pedigree. Since opening in Chicago's Fulton Market in 2014, it has landed on Esquire's Best New Restaurants list and the Chicago Tribune's Top 50, and the Nashville location at 519 Houston Street carries that reputation forward while building in dishes made only for Music City. Chef Gene Kato is debuting the brand's first-ever temaki hand roll program — made-to-order rolls like King Crab, XO Scallop, and Unagi — alongside a playful Nashville Hot Chicken Mapo, longtime favorites such as Uni Spaghetti and the restaurant's famed lamb chops, and an expansive robata grill cooked over open flame.
Sourcing is the quiet flex: seafood flown in multiple times a week from Tokyo's Toyosu Market, produce from local partners Radical Shoots and Valley Gold Farms, and a specialized in-house dry-aging program for bluefin tuna and kampachi. The cocktail list leans Japanese too, from the bourbon-and-yuzu Shiso Shogun to the Haku-vodka Kappa Martini, backed by a deep sake and Japanese whisky selection.
The design tells its own story. The award-winning firm AvroKO drew on both Japanese mid-century modernism and Japan's fascination with classic Americana — rich wood paneling and a stock-exchange-style menu board nodding to the Chicago original, denim and plaid textiles riffing on American culture, and repeating wood-and-tile patterns echoing the Japanese idea of otaku, devotion to a craft. Private dining rooms range from eight to fifty guests, including an intimate room that converts into a karaoke lounge crowned by a neon sign reading "Paripi" — Japanese slang for party people.
Next door at 521 Houston Street, Middleman plays the connective tissue, literally and thematically. Named for the figures who once facilitated Tennessee's underground bourbon trade, the no-reservations bar is built as a literal passageway linking Momotaro and the forthcoming Alla Vita, with AvroKO designing it as a European-arcade-inspired covered walkway under an expansive glass atrium, scattered with eclectic furnishings and collected artifacts that feel brought back from travels abroad. The drinks, led by Boka's Director of Beverage Ashley Santoro, run Southern through and through: classic cocktails layered with dry rub, pickled vegetables, and reserve Tennessee whiskies, including an herbaceous Manhattan riff called Under the Bridge and a savory, pickle-brined gin martini named Gran Turismo.
Both Momotaro and Middleman open at 4:30pm, seven days a week, beginning Friday — the start of a multi-restaurant arrival that plants one of America's premier chef-driven groups firmly in Nashville's fastest-rising neighborhood.