Shota Nakajima is lots of issues — a chef wunderkind, a Prime Chef finalist, a TV star who’s everywhere in the Meals Community, the proprietor of a teriyaki sauce firm, an anime superfan, a continuing presence on social media. One factor he’s not, at the least proper now, is a restaurant proprietor. On Tuesday, March 11, Nakajima introduced on Instagram that he’s formally shutting down Taku, his Osaka-style fried hen restaurant on Capitol Hill. What was a brief closure (since January) will turn out to be everlasting, although Nakajima is planning a few blowout farewell dinners to say so lengthy to the shoppers who’ve been consuming at his eating places for a decade.
Nakajima, born in Japan however raised largely within the U.S., jumped into the Seattle eating scene again in 2015 with Naka, a high-end kaiseki restaurant that the chef not too long ago revived for a limited-run pop-up. A number of years later he swapped Naka for a extra informal, extremely acclaimed restaurant referred to as Adana, which closed in the course of the top of the pandemic lockdown. Adana might have made Nakajima’s popularity, however in case you ever ate at considered one of his eating places it was most likely Taku.
Lined in Japanese pop-culture memorabilia (lots of it from Nakajima’s personal assortment), Taku served fried meals, get together meals, drunk meals. “I need to see drunk individuals on the curb outdoors at 3 a.m., consuming the Fuckit Bucket, understanding they could remorse it later,” Nakajima advised Eater Seattle when it opened in 2020. The kushikatsu dishes (a Japanese time period for skewered fried meals) have been accessible and inexpensive, and company may not have recognized that the joint was run by a well-known TV chef.
It’s that blossoming TV profession, partly, that’s chargeable for Taku’s closure. “With my profession trajectory altering, I actually haven’t been in a position to be on the restaurant,” Nakajima says. He didn’t have a enterprise accomplice to select up the slack when he wasn’t there, and couldn’t be certain that the service was as much as his normal. “It was beginning to flip right into a enterprise that I wasn’t operating the way in which I need to run,” he says. “If I can’t do one thing that’s less than my normal proper now, I have to not do it, as a result of it feels half-assed.”
The momentary closure Taku introduced in January wasn’t essentially linked to this, Nakajima provides — January is a gradual month anyway, and the soar in Seattle’s minimal wage added to his prices.
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19782280/Taku_AM2A1193.jpg "‘Prime Chef’ Star Shota Nakajima Is Closing His Seattle Restaurant Taku 1")
Nakajima is of course utilizing this closure as a possibility to throw some high-profile events. On Friday, March 21, and Saturday, March 22, he’s internet hosting a “Farewell Dinner, Quantity 1,” with fellow native Prime Chef alum Luke Kolpin — however tickets for that $300 occasion have already offered out, womp womp. If you happen to missed out on that you’ve got one other probability: Nakajima says that he’ll be “flying some individuals out” for an additional bash on Friday, April 4, and Saturday, April 5 that he’ll announce on Instagram quickly.
“I’ve the entire gratitude in direction of Seattle and the individuals in Seattle,” he says. “I firmly don’t imagine I might have the alternatives, the profession trajectory, the chums, and the group that I’ve proper now with out the individuals in Seattle actually serving to me out all through the final decade.”
It’s unclear what Nakajima will do subsequent. He’s able to “discover all of the alternatives,” he says, however possibly in a extra deliberate approach than he did in his 20s — he was 25 when he signed his first restaurant lease and has spent the last decade since opening and shutting eating places and changing into a TV star. He needs to come back again to the restaurant world, however it might take a while.
“I believe operating eating places is one thing that’s simply ingrained in me. I completely adore it, so I need to determine learn how to do it appropriately once more,” he says. “I need to be a little bit bit extra intentional. I believe in my 20s and up till now, I’ve at all times been like, ‘Don’t suppose, simply go for it,’ which has really been unbelievable, as a result of it’s given me lots of alternatives. However this time round, suppose I’m attempting to be a little bit bit wiser.”
