Ten counter seats in the Continental Gin Building carry the only Michelin star in Dallas–Fort Worth. Tatsuya Sekiguchi earned it in the inaugural Texas guide in November 2024 and kept it in 2025, and his counter has reorganized the city's Japanese dining around itself: alumni of Uchi, Nobu and the French Laundry now run competing counters within a few miles of each other. The Dallas dining guide covers the whole city; this list ranks its Japanese tables against the global Japanese dining field.
The lineage runs through one soba master
Teiichi Sakurai co-founded Teppo on Greenville Avenue in 1995, opened Tei-An in 2008 as North America's first serious soba house, and trained or inspired most of what follows. The 2025 plot twist: Sakurai sold majority control of Tei-An and his ramen shop to Hunter Pond's Vandelay Hospitality in February 2025, the biggest Dallas Japanese-dining story of the year. Meanwhile the Michelin effect did what it does, and the city added a wave of 17-course, $165-to-$185 counters: Sushi Kozy and Kawa Omakase both opened in 2025, and Kozy made the guide's Recommended list within four months of opening.
The nine, ranked
1. Tatsu — Deep Ellum
Tatsuya Sekiguchi ran the counter at Sushi Yasuda in New York before building his own ten-seat room at 3309 Elm Street, and his Edomae progression, about fifteen pieces from a $185 prepaid menu, won DFW's only Michelin star in 2024 and held it in 2025. Tickets drop on Tock on the 1st and 15th of each month at 8 AM Central and vanish. Tatsu's full review covers the counter. A second room, Kappo Tatsu, is coming to the same building. Not for groups or grazers; this is silent-counter sushi at metronome pace.
2. Shoyo — Lower Greenville
Jimmy Park and master sushi chef Shin Kondo, both Nobu alumni, run twelve seats at 1916 Greenville Avenue with two seatings a night, Tuesday through Saturday. The 17-course Sho menu is $175; the shorter Edomae-focused Edo set runs $125 and is the best value in Dallas omakase. D Magazine has reviewed it twice, most recently in May 2026, and flagged it as the city's next Michelin candidate. Books on Resy. Not for spontaneity; the room sells out with the discipline of a much older restaurant.
3. Sushi Kozy — Arts District
Paul Ko ran the sushi program at Uchi Dallas before opening his own 17-course kaiseki-leaning counter at 2000 Ross Avenue in 2025; the Michelin Guide added it to the Texas Recommended list about four months later. In January 2026 he hired RJ Yoakum, a 2025 James Beard finalist for Emerging Chef with French Laundry training, as chef de cuisine, and the hot courses sharpened immediately. The single menu is $185, released on OpenTable on the 1st of each month. Sushi Kozy's full review covers it. Not for purists; half the menu is cooked.
4. Tei-An — Arts District
Teiichi Sakurai still pulls his own soba at One Arts Plaza, and the restaurant holds a Michelin Recommended listing in the 2025 Texas guide. Honesty requires the caveat: since Vandelay Hospitality took majority control in February 2025, D Magazine's May 2026 mini-review found the kitchen slipping, truffle oil where restraint used to live. The cold zaru soba remains the order; dinner for two can clear $300. Tei-An's full review tracks it. Not for anyone chasing the 2015 version; go when Sakurai is in the building, which regulars say is the only time it fully counts.
5. Uchi — Uptown
Tyson Cole, the 2011 James Beard Best Chef: Southwest winner, planted his Austin flagship's Dallas outpost at 2817 Maple Avenue in 2015, and the hama chili, yellowtail with ponzu and Thai chile, is still the gateway dish of Texas sushi. Dinner runs $80 to $150 with the daily specials doing the best work; books on Resy. Uchi's full review maps the menu. Not for Edomae orthodoxy; this is creative sushi, loud room, and it has never pretended otherwise.
6. Nobu — Uptown
The Crescent Court outpost has served the Matsuhisa canon, black cod miso, yellowtail jalapeño, rock shrimp tempura, since 2005, making it one of the oldest Nobu rooms in the American interior. Dinner runs $90 to $150, omakase from about $135, and the room remains the city's most reliable client-dinner Japanese. Nobu Dallas's full review covers the room. Not for discovery; you know every dish before you sit down, and that predictability is the product.
7. Sushi by Scratch — Downtown
Phillip Frankland Lee and Margarita Kallas-Lee made their Adolphus Hotel pop-up permanent in 2024: a 17-course, $165 omakase, sixteen nigiri and one dessert bite, with fish flown twice weekly from Toyosu and A5 wagyu from Iron Table Wagyu in Gatesville, Texas. Books prepaid on Tock at 1321 Commerce Street. Not for slow evenings; the format is engineered, theatrical and done in well under two hours.
8. Sushi|Bar — East Quarter
The twelve-seat speakeasy counter at 2111 Jackson Street runs the national group's 17-course format at $185 with a welcome cocktail and a soundtrack that leans louder than its competitors. PaperCity ranks it among the city's best omakases, and downtown's twin-counter scene, this room plus Sushi by Scratch, gives the East Quarter an after-dark reason to exist. Not for conversation across a table; it is a counter, a bar and a show, in that order.
9. Namo — West Village
Brandon Cohanim founded Namo at 3699 McKinney Avenue in 2018, at twenty-two; executive chef Kazuhito Mabuchi, ex-Sushi Ginza Onodera in Los Angeles, brings two-Michelin-star training to a handroll-and-nigiri room that stays under $120 for most diners. The Edomae-style handrolls are the order. Books on Resy and OpenTable. Not for the full omakase ritual; Namo is the room you use on the nights the counters are booked, and it earns the slot.
Where not to spend the evening
Teppo closed in July 2022 after twenty-seven years, and any list still routing diners to 2014 Greenville Avenue is recycling the past; the torch passed down the block to Shoyo. Skip the all-you-can-eat boards and party-roll barns along the tollway, where the fish tastes of the freezer and the cream cheese does the talking. And calibrate Tei-An expectations to 2026, not to its golden decade; the name on the lease changed, and the kitchen is still finding its footing under new ownership.
Booking notes
The counters run on drops. Tatsu releases on Tock on the 1st and 15th at 8 AM Central; Sushi Kozy releases the month on OpenTable on the 1st; Shoyo's two Resy seatings, Tuesday to Saturday, go a week-plus out. Uchi, Nobu and Namo behave like normal restaurants, with prime Fridays needing a few days' notice. For solo dining, every counter on this list seats singles without friction; to impress clients, Nobu's Crescent Court room remains the safest yes in the city.
Keep reading
The global field is ranked in the definitive Japanese dining guide, and the city's full table is in the Dallas dining guide. For the in-state comparison, Houston's Japanese ranking and Austin's Japanese list show where the rest of Texas's fish money goes.
Frequently asked questions
Does Dallas have a Michelin-starred Japanese restaurant?
Yes, exactly one: Tatsu in Deep Ellum, which took the only Michelin star awarded in Dallas–Fort Worth in the inaugural Texas guide of November 2024 and retained it in the 2025 edition. Tatsuya Sekiguchi serves a $185 Edomae omakase at a ten-seat counter. Tei-An and Sushi Kozy hold Recommended listings, a tier below.
How hard is it to book Tatsu in Dallas?
Hard but solvable with a calendar. Reservations drop on Tock on the 1st and 15th of each month at 8 AM Central, covering the following stretch of dates, and the ten counter seats sell out the same morning. Set an alarm, have your card ready since the $185 menu is prepaid, and aim for Tuesday or Wednesday seatings, which last longest.
Is Tei-An still worth it after the ownership change?
With adjusted expectations. Teiichi Sakurai sold majority control to Vandelay Hospitality in February 2025, and D Magazine's May 2026 review found the soba over-dressed and the discipline slipping. The handmade soba is still unlike anything else in Texas, and the Michelin Recommended listing held in 2025. Regulars say the meal counts when Sakurai himself is in the building.
What is the best omakase value in Dallas?
Shoyo's $125 Edo set, a shorter Edomae-focused run from Nobu alumni Jimmy Park and Shin Kondo on Lower Greenville, beats every $185 ticket in town on price per insight. Sushi by Scratch's $165 seventeen-courser at the Adolphus is the best theater for the money. Sushi Kozy at $185 buys the most ambitious cooking of the new wave.
What happened to Teppo on Greenville Avenue?
It closed in July 2022 after twenty-seven years as the city's pioneering yakitori-and-sushi bar. Co-founder Teiichi Sakurai had long since moved on to Tei-An, and the Greenville Avenue corridor's serious-Japanese mantle passed to Shoyo at 1916 Greenville, where the omakase counter now runs twelve seats a night. Lists still citing Teppo are four years stale.