{"id":379405,"date":"2026-07-20T10:27:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T10:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/379405\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T10:27:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T10:27:11","slug":"japanese-restaurant-wakuda-to-open-in-dallas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/379405\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese restaurant Wakuda to open in Dallas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Modern Japanese restaurant\u00a0Wakuda is expanding into Texas, in one of the priciest dining neighborhoods in Dallas, the Design District<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Tokyo-inspired restaurant\u00a0Wakuda is expected to open in fall 2027, restaurant founder John Kunkel confirmed to\u00a0The Dallas Morning News.<\/p>\n

Picking Dallas was obvious,\u00a0Kunkel said. After members of the Las Vegas Sands\u00a0Corp. bought a majority interest in the Dallas Mavericks<\/a> from Mark Cuban, they wanted fine-dining restaurant\u00a0Wakuda to join the city where they’d made a sizeable investment. Restaurant founder Kunkel made it happen.<\/p>\n

Wakuda in the Dallas Design District will be a nearly 10,000-square-foot restaurant with a focus on “live-fire proteins,” Kunkel said. That’s beef, mostly: a selection of individual cuts, 32-ounce shareable steaks (which cost $275 on the Las Vegas menu), and tastes of Australian, American and Japanese Wagyu.<\/p>\n

“We want to embrace Dallas and the steakhouse,” Kunkel said.<\/p>\n

The Japanese word\u00a0yakiniku, or grilled meat, will be central to the Dallas menu, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sushi is likely to be a significant portion of the menu as well, as it is central to the restaurants in Singapore and Vegas.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kunkel\u00a0isn’t willing to\u00a0say whether Wakuda will chase Michelin attention in Texas<\/a>\u00a0just yet, though it’s likely anonymous critics from the French guide will be waiting on the opening. “Our goal is to deliver Michelin-level quality in an approachable, fun atmosphere,”\u00a0Kunkel said. Diners won’t find white tablecloths but instead a “youthful, vibrant” feeling inside, he said. Design plans are underway.<\/p>\n

Wakuda is much bigger than what 50 Eggs typically does, Kunkel said, to accommodate private dining rooms for special events.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Modern Japanese restaurant\u00a0Wakuda is expanding into Texas, in one of the priciest dining neighborhoods in Dallas, the Design…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,95928,87998,95961,88943,95701,89276,89307],"class_list":["post-379405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-tp-chefs","tag-tp-dallas","tag-tp-design-district","tag-tp-japanese-food","tag-tp-michelin-guide","tag-tp-restaurant-openings","tag-tp-restaurants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}