Inside a new sushi restaurant, there are no menus sitting on the table.
Instead, customers (eight at a time, to be exact) sit around the counter inside the small, intimate space and observe as chef Jerry Cao chooses and prepares the next course. Ultimately, what comes next is up to him.
That’s the idea behind omakase — a Japanese phrase that roughly translates to “chef’s choice” or “I’ll leave it up to you”. His new downtown Overland Park restaurant, Kiyoshi Omakese, opened its doors this month — already filling with reservations in its first couple of weeks.
Kiyoshi opened at 8016 Santa Fe Drive
- The restaurant occupies a space just off 80th Street and Santa Fe Drive, near Thompson Park and Mediterranean eatery Hummus and Pita.
- Ethiopian restaurant Abol previously occupied that space.
- Kiyoshi is open from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, and its Saturday and Sunday hours are noon to 3 p.m. for lunch and 5 to 10 p.m. for dinner.
Kiyoshi serves 14 courses for $98
At Kiyoshi, 14 courses are served over the duration of a customer’s stay. Offerings change from day to day, depending on ingredient availability.
Customers sit around the counter and watch as Cao prepares each dish: a “sushi show” of sorts.
“Every dish is different,” Cao said.
Those courses primarily focus on sushi, but customers can expect to taste other dishes like wagyu beef, foie gras and truffle.
The whole experience costs $98, and the restaurant can seat up to eight customers at a time.
Most of the fish at Kiyoshi is sourced globally, with some coming directly from Toyosu Market in Japan. Much of the seafood is pre-ordered for each service.
“That’s why we need people to make reservations, it’s for freshness,” said Yuanyuan “Haley” Li, manager at Kiyoshi and Cao’s partner.
In Japanese, “Kiyoshi” roughly translates to “purity” in Japanese, Li said. That idea carries through to the way the restaurant’s food is prepared.
“Right now, in regular sushi restaurants, they put a lot of sauces, they fry the food, fry the sushi,” she said.
At Kiyoshi, she said, the goal is the opposite: “You taste exactly the fish.” Sauces and accompaniments are used sparingly.
Kiyoshi isn’t Cao’s first restaurant
Both Cao and Li have nearly two decades of experience in the restaurant world. In fact, Cao helped open Zen Sushi Omakese in New York.
Though omakase is a bit more common up in the northeastern United States, it’s still relatively rare to see in this part of the country.
As such, Li said, she and Cao aimed to bring the “New York City style” of dining a bit closer to a community that might not have had the chance to experience it yet. So far, she said, a steady number of reservation bookings has shown the demand is there.
Since Cao also has family in Overland Park, they said, it was a win-win.
“The Midwest doesn’t have a lot of Omakase style restaurants right now,” Li said. “This is going to be (one of the) first ones.”
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