(Image: @chefshota)
Capitol Hill’s most recognizable chef — it’s the giggle — will open his next new restaurant project closer to the mountains and trees.
Shota Nakajima has announced he is opening a teriyaki joint — in Cle Elum.
“Cle Elum is an hour and change east into the mountains from Seattle where the mountains and trees are breathtaking and I couldn’t be more excited to get out there for the spring season,” the popular Top Chef contestant said about the coming soon project.
Banzai Teriyaki will be a “a teriyaki dive bar” with a big rooftop patio, Nakajima told Seattle Met, with plans for a late March opening.
Banzai joins another beyond Seattle project from a popular Capitol Hill purveyor of Japanese cuisine for a mini-trend of Hill-related food and drink joints popping up closer to areas chefs like to recreate. CHS reported last fall on Makoto Kimoto’s plans to open Rondo and Tamari Bar sibling Hi Life, a new “chopstick stand” on Bainbridge Island, a jumping off point for Kimoto’s fishing adventures.
As far as other Hill-related hiking approximate food and drink ventures, you’ll also find a Rhein Haus in the Bavarian-flavored high mountain outpost of Leavenworth.
Nakajima, meanwhile, re-launched his Taku on E Pike last spring with “twice-fried karaage nuggets” and wings after finding fame and a little fortune in his turn on the Portland season of Top Chef.
You’ll find Banzai late next month at 219 First Street in Cle Elum.
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