The team behind one of Houston’s most acclaimed omakase restaurants will soon open a new sister concept with a more affordable price point. Comma Hospitality, the restaurant group known for its luxurious sushi restaurant Neo, will open Kira in Upper Kirby’s Shops at Arrive River Oaks development this Tuesday, August 6.

While Neo is known for its multi-course tasting menu that combines nigiri and hot items, Kira will be a more casual restaurant devoted to hand rolls (temaki), Japanese rice bowls (donburi), and Japanese shaved ice (kakigori). Those dishes will be paired with a beverage program centered around highballs, sake, champagne, and seasonal cocktails made with Japanese spirits.

“We wanted to do something that’s a little more approachable and fun, more everyday. A place a consumer can go on a daily or weekly basis,” Comma Hospitality managing partner Jeremy Truong tells CultureMap. “It combines our interest in music and design into a restaurant.”

Japanese record bars provided much of the inspiration for Kira’s design. Truong notes that Comma Hospitality chef-partners Luis Mercado and Paolo Justo have made multiple trips to Japan as well as to establishments like Mexico City’s Tokyo Music Bar. An ultra high end McIntosh turntable will power the restaurant’s soundtrack, which will draw upon a carefully curated selected of Japanese vinyl that includes jazz and other genres, as well as American rock and hip hop.

“We want [music] to be a reason for people come in,” Truong says. “You come for the hospitality, you come for the design, you come to hear this Japanese vinyl you’ve been dying to hear.”

While Kira’s a la carte format will be different from Neo’s set progressions, the restaurant’s hand rolls will use similar ingredients to those used in Neo’s nigiri. At the more affordable end, diners will have options such as hand rolls made with ocean trout and Hokkaido scallops, or Hen of the Woods mushrooms. At the more luxurious end, signature Neo ingredients like Norwegian blue lobster and caviar will be utilized for hand rolls, while a donburi might feature A5 wagyu with shaved truffles. The menu also includes sashimi and crudos.

Similarly, the kakigori will be made with an imported Japanese ice machine and will be topped with seasonal fruits. The opening menu includes a pandan flavor as well as raspberry with condensed milk.

Chefs Mercado and Justo, who won Chef of the Year in the 2024 CultureMap Tastemaker Awards, will oversee the menu’s development and assist with sourcing, Truong says, but the restaurant will be led day-to-day by chef Mark Wong, who worked with Mercado at Uchi. “We thought he’d be a super good addition to the team,” Truong says.

For its cocktail menu, the Comma team worked with Marc Rodriguez, an alum of acclaimed New York City Korean restaurant Atomix — ranked No. 6 on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list — and one of Punch’s Best New Bartenders of 2023. Choices include the 15 Step (applewood bacon washed tequila, yuzu, cucumber, and Yondu) and the All I Need (Suntory Toki, yuzu curacao, Campari, vermouth blend, and purple shiso), as well as Japanese-style high balls served from a dedicated highball machine. Kira’s beverage director, veteran Houston bartender Aaron Lara, has supplemented those creations with a tidy list of beer, wine, and sake.

At just 15 seats, it will still feel intimate, just as Neo’s location inside Montrose’s Glass Cypress clothing boutique does.

Kira isn’t Comma Hospitality’s only project under development. The group has been quietly transforming a house in the Heights into a location for another omakase restaurant. “We had plans of that being the follow up to Neo, but time and working with the City of Houston has delayed it,” Truong says.

More details on that restaurant will be released once it’s closer to opening. For now, Upper Kirby diners have an intimate new eatery to look forward to.

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This article was originally published on June 4. It has been updated on August 5 with details and about the opening date, the record collection, the menu, and the beverage program.

  

Courtesy of Comma Hospitality

Kira will serve Japanese rice bowls.