A room with a view.

There were many reasons to take the leap and try to open a sister restaurant to Uchi, and one of them was to meet the demand of many requests for reservations and bookings for larger tables/parties. With Uchi being limited space and a walk-in based restaurant, there just isn’t the space or ability to take reservations for larger type parties; about the biggest we can handle at Uchi is a 12 top…and even that’s pushing it.

So, going into Uchiko we wanted to make sure and provide a PDR (private dining room) to meet these requests. We went back and forth for months on the design of how we wanted it to be. So many options!  How “open” would it be? How “private” could it become? How would we server it during service? What if more than one party was requested on a given night/holiday?

With all these questions in mind, we came upon this: a PDR in the back of Uchiko that has the ability to split into 2 rooms if necessary, with a glass wall somewhat separating it from the dining room….but that could also be left open if we wanted to seat the PDR just as extra seating if need be too.

The last thing we came up with is based on an idea i had from a chef  friend of mine’s place in Dallas named “Stephen Pyles”. There he had the whole resto build around the dining room, and there’s on PDR there that has a window in it that opens up into their back pantry kitchen. He uses this access to serve food directly, demo for parties and teach cooking classes. I thought it was a brilliant idea and took it upon myself to carve a similar type window into our PDR at Uchiko; seen left. The window here will be covered with a gorgeous brass door, and we’ll open it up for private parties/events, and i can’t wait to teach a few classes through it too!

*by the way, the “tiles” surrounding the door and covering the back wall are made from kiln dried pecan, that is reclaimed from a single tree that once lived off of Barton Springs rd here in town.

carpentry deluxe

The architect for Uchiko is Michael Hsu, and he’s done an amazing job on the space and design. Our focus: keep things cozy,intimate,inviting. We’ve done this by breaking space up into 4 separate areas: Eat-in bar, dining room, sushi bar, and private dining room.

This photo is work being done today in the eat-in bar by our carpenter Ambrose’s team of skilled peeps. The cabinetry is based on traditional Japanese crafted functional cabinets called “tansu”; pushing the idea of the space feeling like a home ,like it’s parent Uchi. I’m hoping to scour the city and the net and find a ton of manga/anime mags to fill some of the shelves too! If anyone knows a connection, let me know!

white

The white dessert challenge that i spoke of; Philip worked on this for weeks, and we tried many different versions…ending on this one. We experiment with most of the food at Uchi; try to use everyone’s valuable ideas & input to make dishes as perfect as possible. Nice to have talent in the execution from someone like Phil to pull it off though. One of the best pastry chef’s in America in my opinion and we’re very fortunate to have him as part of our team as we grow into the future.

This dessert is all about texture,temperature,and flavor combinations. Desserts will play a strong roll in our upcoming Uchi cookbook in the spring too. Keep an eye our for more information as the process continues…

Flavors are: white chocolate,marscapone,macadamia,coconut, and lime.

The ice cold sorbet with the super soft air foam and crunchy tuiles is spectacular. You gotta try it!

brick by brick

A couple of craftsman finishing up a section of the north wall of Uchiko inside. The brick is set in place on it’s end; then treated/stained/painted to this red flat color. Looking to see the entire wall complete by week’s end.

The overall design of Uchiko: keep things just as comfortable and inviting as Uchi, but add some new crafted finishes and use simple/quality materials to accomplish this. Key phrase we worked off of: Modern Japanese Farmhouse. Lots more to come.

Just got in from a fantastic night at Uchi. We ran 5 new specials that we’ve been perfecting over the past week, each based on a different color. Phil was given the most difficult challenge of them all: White!  I’ll post a picture of it right after this.

All 5 should run over the next couple days; come in and try them all!