Houston’s Seductive 15 Seat Japanese Listening Bar Channels Tokyo — What a Night at Kira Is Really Like

If it seems like the intimacy has vanished from Houston’s restaurant scene consider Kira, a seductively dark, 15-seat Japanese handroll and immersive vinyl listening bar. Inspired by those small, traditional sushi and handroll stalls you’d find scattered in corners throughout Tokyo, it all unfolds in a simple charcoal-hued space with leather-wrapped chairs pulled up to a low, two-tiered bar devoid of color, save for the curious large-scale abstract paintings which depict zaftig figures and sinuous, otherworldly creatures.

As for the vinyl selections, I’m told the genres vary and can be selected by diners and staff requests alike.

Kira is develped by Comma Hospitality, built by brothers Samee and Saber Ahmed, the menswear designers behind the avant-garde fashion label Glass Cypress, along with Jeremy Truong, the group’s chief operating officer, and chef partners Luis Mercado and Paolo Justo. This new restaurant is poised next door to Comma’s sister restaurant Toga, with both situated on the first floor of the Arrivé at River Oaks high-rise at 2800 Kirby Drive.

Specializing in temaki (handrolls), sashimi, crudo and donburi (rice bowls) selections, you can put yourself in the hands of chef Fernando Villasmil with a multi-course chef’s selection for two or a single diner. You can’t go wrong ordering what jumps out at you, like a little of this and a little of that. Perhaps start with a crudo of bluefin tuna ($10/20) bathed in a garlic-scented ponzu topped with sliced shiitake mushrooms beneath a nest of shaved onion.

Six sashimi options appeal to the purists, with options that include sake ($10), a Faroe Island salmon variety ($10) and blue otoro, the fattiest of fatty tunas ($22). The temaki rolls, wrapped in crisp, toasted nori, are shaped not in a cone but in a cylinder. In my mind, that’s a better way to evenly distribute the contents so the last bite is as satisfying as the first.

This is where Villasmil shines with alluring flavor combinations. These include steak and eggs ($16), a slice of Wagyu mingled with a soft egg scramble; a lobster ($23) coupled with a lemon-tinged seaweed hollandaise; and a Peking duck ($7) layered with pickled carrots, the duck’s crisp skin and that traditional hoisin sauce.

More substantial donburi selections include five options, such as the vegetarian ($29) with a trio of mushrooms from maitake (hen of the woods), shiitake and the French-cooked and minced duxelles all bound with an egg yolk. There is also a Wagyu rice bowl ($45) with the aforementioned duxelles, wasabi and Japanese garlic furikake seasoning.

You must not leave, however, without ordering a kakigori, otherwise known as shaved ice. If not just for the show alone. Shaved by hand, a mighty block of ice (imported from Japan along with the fish, naturally), is put into a hand-cranked contraption, where a wide bowl below captures the feather-like shavings. Built layer upon layer, the raspberry variety ($15) is made with a combination of fresh raspberry coulis and a concentrated, pectin-rich essence, squirted on each layer before it’s topped with a drizzle of sweetened condensed milk and a generous dollop of rich, softly whipped cream. Heavenly.

Kira is open 11 am to 3 pm and 4 pm to 10 pm Mondays through Thursdays, 11 am to 3 pm and 4 pm to 11 pm Fridays and Saturdays, and 11 am to 9 pm Sundays.