Copyright The Philadelphia Inquirer
High-end Japanese cuisine by way of Austin, Texas, will soon arrive in Rittenhouse Square as Uchi, the flagship restaurant in James Beard Award-winning chef Tyson Cole’s portfolio, joins a mini-boom in the neighborhood. Dancerobot, from Royal Izakaya chefs Jesse Ito and Justin Bacharach, opened a block away in September, while Kissho House, from chef Jeff Chen, opened two blocks away over the summer. Uchi — Japanese for “home” — has set a Nov. 17 opening for its ground-floor space in the Josephine, the new, mixed-use building at 1620 Sansom St. on the former site of a parking garage. Uchi’s 148 seats include an eight-seat bar and 13-seat sushi bar. The high-style à la carte menu includes premium fish with nontraditional toppings, such as hama chili (yellowtail sashimi), hirame usuzukuri (flounder with candied quinoa and olive oil), machi cure (smoked yellowtail with yuca crisp and Marcona almond), kinoko usuzukuri (seasonal mushroom, shallot, shiro zu), and the Maguro Goat, which features an East-West pairing of bigeye tuna with goat cheese and pumpkin seed. Uchi offers a 10-course traditional omakase at the sushi bar as well as at the tables; it’s priced from $350 to $425 for two people, based on market price. The restaurant also has a somakase, a tasting menu for which customers specify their likes and dislikes and the kitchen prepares the menu accordingly. There’s also a 10-course vegetarian tasting menu priced from $125 to $150 per person. Hai Hospitality’s in-house design team worked with the architecture firm Zebra and Philadelphia’s Rohe Creative, whose most recent local restaurant project is Dear Daphni. Philadelphia is Uchi’s seventh city, after Dallas, Houston, Miami, Denver, Scottsdale, and West Hollywood. It is Hai Hospitality’s 20th restaurant overall. Hai chief executive Tony Montero told the Austin Business Journal that a location of Uchiko, an Uchi offshoot, will open soon in suburban Denver. Six additional leases have been signed for Uchi and related brand Uchiba, with openings in 2026 and 2027. Hai also oversees Loro, an East Asian-meets-Texas smokehouse chain in partnership with Aaron Franklin of Austin’s Franklin Barbecue, and an omakase tasting room called Oheya. In a phone chat, Cole — who won the Beard Award for Best Chef, Southwest, in 2011 — attributed Uchi’s success to the restaurant’s culture, including its training program. “We grow careers,” he said. “We really raise the bar that way.” Uchi’s chefs and general managers all have at least three years of experience with the company before they go to open a location. Austin-born Ford Sonnenberg, for example, a six-year Hai veteran, is Philadelphia’s chef de cuisine. He finished his sous chef training at Uchiko Austin before opening the more casual Uchiba Austin, where he worked for two years before his promotion to executive sous chef last year.
