<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=33LMcs_19NTtkBt00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=33LMcs_19NTtkBt00" width="1800" height="1200" ><figcaption>Leo Kekoa and Chikao Kikuchi work the counter at kaiseki restaurant Ichika. Diana Spechler</figcaption></figure>To dine in North Texas’ first restaurant dedicated to kaiseki—a multicourse hyper-seasonal affair and the pinnacle of Japanese haute cuisine—you’re going to have to leave Dallas. You’re going to have to venture to Plano, and not even downtown Plano. In a strip mall just south of Stonebriar, Ichika sits nestled between a bubble tea shop and a CPAP Express. Inside the restaurant, gentle piano music pipes through the speakers. Eight curved seats line a single counter. The decor is all clean lines and pale wood. Even the lone art piece on the wall is spare, geometric, and wooden. When the first bottle of sake arrives, so does a tray full of hand-crafted glass cups, each with its own unique design, so every diner can choose his or her favorite.Ichika, the latest venture of Korean-Okinawan chef Leo Kekoa, is a bold departure from other Japanese restaurants in North Texas, most of which sling sushi or ramen, and some of which spare no expense on krab, mayo, boxed tempura batter, and supermarket cream cheese. Although Kekoa and head chef Chikao Kikuchi (formerly of Sushi on McKinney and Edoko) source Texas oranges and Texas wagyu, the majority of their ingredients come from Japan, and nothing has been manufactured in the Western world. In other words, no mayo, heavy sauces, or refined sugar will grace this counter. Nothing in the restaurant, edible or decorative, comes in colors that don’t exist in nature. Each of the eight courses showcases seasonal ingredients in five preparations: raw, steamed, grilled, fried, and cured.45-year-old Kekoa, who grew up working in his grandfather’s Honolulu sushi restaurant, moved to Dallas in 2012 to cook at Nobu, where he stayed for a decade. “Nobu is the Harvard of the sushi world,” Kekoa says. “Harvard doesn’t teach you how to be smart, but it does make you part of a lineage.” His lineage includes his friend Shine Tamaoki, who left Nobu Dallas around the same time he did to open Pearl, and Kang Mingoo, whose Seoul restaurant Mingles recently earned its third Michelin star. “I’m very proud of Kang Mingoo,” Kekoa says. “He started out like us. No investors.” In 2022, Kekoa opened the omakase restaurant Kinzo in Frisco, and in late 2025, he and his wife opened a more casual sushi spot, Hinoki, also in Frisco.But Kekoa always wanted to introduce Dallas to kaiseki. “I’ve been to hundreds of restaurants in Japan,” Kekoa says, “and kaiseki is my favorite.” Moreover, he wanted to give diners something that he didn’t believe sushi could give: warmth. “I wanted to cook rice and soup.” (One of the current courses is a clear dashi soup with boiled radish and snapper.) “That’s what grandmothers do.”And so Ichika, offering one seating per night, five nights a week, and one menu per season, was born. “Warm” is an apt description. As cringe-inducing as it is to compare a restaurant to an oasis, Ichika does provide a zen-like ambiance. “I wanted it to feel like a temple,” Kekoa says. “But that doesn’t mean you have to listen to gongs.” Kekoa used to work in the music industry, and his friends, ’90s pioneers of DJ music in Japan, built Ichika’s playlist to correspond to the stages of the meal: welcoming at the beginning, then calming, then upbeat as the evening comes to a close.<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=01GsXP_19NTtkBt00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=01GsXP_19NTtkBt00" width="1600" height="1067" ><figcaption>Owan, a steamed fish in clear broth. Diana Spechler</figcaption></figure>The word “kaiseki,” meaning “breast-pocket stone,” is a reference to the hot stones Zen monks held to their bellies to stave off hunger. Kaiseki was once a simple meal served to monks to prepare for tea. Since the 16th century, it has forked into two styles—that basic tea prelude, cha-kaiseki, and the more elaborate kaiseki-ryori, which is often paired with sake, and served in some of the most important restaurants in the world. The Michelin Guide has doled out stars to kaiseki-ryori restaurants across Japan, particularly in Tokyo and Kyoto, kaiseki’s birthplace, as well as in the States, including to Shibumi in Los Angeles, which closed last summer after nine years, and SingleThread in Sonoma.If you think you’ve been to a dedicated kaiseki restaurant in Dallas, you haven’t, though you’ve likely heard the word thrown around. In Dallas, restaurants that identify as kaiseki or kaiseki-style are usually offering omakase, perhaps using “kaiseki” to indicate multiple courses. Sushi Kozy is the closest thing Dallas has to kaiseki, but it calls itself “kaiseki-inspired,” and leans heavily on both sushi and sauces. Although the Addison restaurant Takumi Hachi now offers kaiseki, the kaiseki menu is listed among other menus, including omakase and a la carte sushi.Ichika is technically “kappo-kaiseki,” meaning diners sit at the counter, watching the chefs prepare the food. In traditional kaiseki, by contrast, food is prepared out of view. “Fine dining is half food, half service,” Kekoa says. “A generation ago, service wasn’t part of it. A server would deliver a kaiseki to a private room in a ryokan without saying a word. I love that, but I’m doing something more modern.” Although “kappo” breaks from kaiseki tradition, that break is increasingly common in upscale kaiseki restaurants. Some of the best in the world have implemented counter service, too, including the two-Michelin-starred Gion Maruyama in Kyoto. At Den in Tokyo, the chef does away with solemnity and serves dishes like Den-Tucky Fried Chicken. At Daigo, also in Tokyo, the kaiseki is fully vegan.Ichika’s $250 tasting menu includes sakizuke (a prelude of the seasons), hassun (five expressions of the season), otsukuri (sashimi), owan (clear broth with steamed fish), agemono (fried food), yakimono (grilled food), oshokuji (nigiri), and kanmi (dessert). The meal opens with a bowl of kombu dashi stock made with Ito En water flown in from Hawaii, mixed with homemade tsuyu. In the stock, uni and Alaskan salmon roe sit atop buckwheat noodles. The next course is a tray with five bites, including miso-cured wagyu and steamed abalone. Although it might be the simplest fare, the deep-fried course, in this case burdock and tiger-shrimp tempura, shines. At least, it’s pretty mind-blowing to eat deep-fried food so complex that it defamiliarizes deep-fried food. Whatever we’ve been eating at the State Fair of Texas, this is the opposite. To create the small bubbles in the batter, Kekoa uses cold Italian sparkling water. “Making good tempura is all about the mixture of the oils,” he says. “And you can’t get good oil without a private vendor.”Kekoa is serious about his vendors. When it comes to kaiseki ingredients, everything is simple, so everything must meet exacting standards. “We’re not looking for truffles or foie gras. We’re looking for salt, water, kelp,” Kekoa says. “It costs more to ship our kelp than it costs most restaurants to buy their kelp.” Kekoa met his rice vendors in a kaiseki shop in Kyoto and cultivated relationships with them for two years before they agreed to sell their rice to him. “They were very reserved,” he says. “But this is the best rice for soup. You can’t beat it.” The rice is itself a full-time job: Kekoa washes it 10 times, polishing every grain. “I wash it like it’s a baby bird,” he says. “And we never shake the rice to get the water out. We let it strain overnight for nine hours, so the water drips out naturally.”After dining at Ichika, you, too, might feel as though you’ve been washed like a baby bird. At your place, you’ll find your name handwritten on washi paper from Japan. You’ll drink sakes that are only produced in the smallest batches, or only produced in winter, and eat food cooked over the world’s finest charcoal. The dessert, handmade mochi with brown sugar syrup and ground bean powder, is served with a tiny, two-pronged bamboo fork. The spa-like restroom is dimly lit, equipped with a Japanese toilet and hand towels as soft and light as meringue. Before you leave, like a worn-out child at the end of a birthday party, you’ll receive a goody bag. You’ll buzz with the calm borne of a true kaiseki experience.“There’s no filler,” Kekoa says. “Every single element of kaiseki has a reason to be there.”Update, Mar. 6: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated chef Kekoa’s heritage; he is one-quarter Okinawan, not half Okinawan.</div></body>

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To dine in North Texas’ first restaurant dedicated to kaiseki—a multicourse hyper-seasonal affair and the pinnacle of Japanese haute cuisine—you’re going to have to leave Dallas. You’re going to have to venture to Plano, and not even downtown Plano. In a strip mall just south of Stonebriar, Ichika sits nestled between a bubble tea shop and a CPAP Express. Inside the restaurant, gentle piano music pipes through the speakers. Eight curved seats line a single counter. The decor is all clean lines and pale wood. Even the lone art piece on the wall is spare, geometric, and wooden. When the first bottle of sake arrives, so does a tray full of hand-crafted glass cups, each with its own unique design, so every diner can choose his or her favorite.

At Ichika, Chef Leo Kekoa Introduces Japanese Kaiseki Dining to North Texas

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To dine in North Texas’ first restaurant dedicated to kaiseki—a multicourse hyper-seasonal affair and the pinnacle of Japanese haute cuisine—you’re going t

At Ichika, Chef Leo Kekoa Introduces Japanese Kaiseki Dining to North Texas

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