Hiro’s Kitchen – Sushi & Sake

Hiro’s Kitchen – Sushi & Sake is a recent addition to Fort Worth’s Near Southside with a precise personal story behind it. Hiroto Ochiai and Nami opened the restaurant on August 20, 2026, after years connected with Tokyo and New York. Their fifteen-seat counter places sushi and sake at the center of the evening, with both omakase and à la carte formats available. The small scale and the choice of format give a prospective guest two clear ways to approach the new restaurant.

Ochiai comes from Niigata, Japan. His career developed through Enterprise HUGE and Jean-Georges Tokyo before he moved to New York in 2017. There, he worked with the teams at Sushi Amane and Shion 69 Leonard as a sous chef and beverage director. That background connects the Fort Worth restaurant with both kitchen work and the relationship between food and drink, rather than presenting sake as an afterthought to the sushi.

He holds the International Kikisake-shi certification as a sake sommelier. The restaurant describes an interest in introducing guests to styles, regions and producers, with Nami also sharing her knowledge of sake. For a diner curious about Japanese drinking culture, this gives the counter a second subject to explore alongside the food. The experience can be approached through a chef-led sequence or through individual orders, depending on how much direction the guest wants.

Hiro’s Kitchen is an appealing choice for someone who wants a close-focus sushi setting and a conversation between the meal and the sake selection. Its recent opening gives the restaurant a developing story in the neighborhood; the established element is the team’s experience and the clearly defined counter format. The invitation is to choose that format for what it offers, without assuming a fixed list of fish or an identical sequence on every visit.

Sources: Hiro’s Kitchen: opening, chef, dining formats and hours · Hiro’s Kitchen – Sushi & Sake: Google Maps listing