First Look: Eighteen Courses at the Twelve-Seat Ukiyo

A secret entrance in an alley, smoke billowing as a glass dome is removed from a dish, a tree made with cotton candy. Ukiyo — the new, twelve-seat chef's counter under Bao Brewhouse in Larimer Square — is an Instagrammer's dream. But with a price tag that's slightly higher than Michelin-starred Brutø — $175 per person for eighteen courses — diners should have high expectations that go beyond visual appeal.

While a meal at Ukiyo is definitely an intimate experience and some of the courses deliver memorable flavors, there's also room for improvement.

Chef Phraseuth "Paul" Sananikone is Lao American and was raised in Corpus Christi, Texas, where his family owned a hibachi restaurant. "I grew up in the industry since I was five, peeling shrimp in the basement and doing dishes — just giving me stuff to do if I wasn't playing sports. ...There were days that I wanted to be there but there were days that I didn't want to be there, so I had to be good at sports," Sananikone says.

He attended the University of Texas in Austin and "didn't really have a career path," he continues. "Then I lost my dad at age 23, so I kind of took on the restaurant experience with my mom for a good decade."

Eventually, he returned to Austin, where he got much of his more formal training as a chef before trying his hand at real estate. "Then I got a call from my cousin to go work in Jing Aspen," he says. He became the executive chef there and met Michael Swift, who was the general manager.
"Michael always had this big dream of opening his own restaurant and I was like, I've been there, done that and I don't know if I want to do it," Sananikone recalls. "I'm just kind of figuring out life and traveling, and then COVID happened and everyone went separate ways."

Swift opened Bao Brewhouse in the former Euclid Hall space in late 2020. Sananikone was still focused on traveling, but "Michael was always checking up on me, asking if I was ready."

After three years, Sananikone was finally ready to figure out his next career move, and Swift happened to call at just the right time with the idea of opening an intimate omakase concept, which means "trust the chef." This one dabbles in a variety of cuisines and flavors because "I didn't want to be just a strictly Japanese chef," Sananikone explains. "I'm not Japanese, for one, and I wanted to bring all these other ideas to the table that could be like a hybrid."

Ukiyo is located beneath Bao Brewhouse's main floor, in a space that was a restaurant decades ago, and can be accessed through the main entrance or an all-black door in the alley with a discreet sign glowing over the top.

Seatings start at 6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. A host greets diners and escorts them down to the space, where Jeremiah Watson, who created the beverage menu, kicks things off by going over the lineup of smartly crafted cocktails ($18 each) as well as sake, Japanese whiskey and wine, all of which can be ordered a la carte.

Around fifteen minutes after diners arrive, Sananikone introduces himself and the food starts flowing. Eighteen courses may sound like a lot, but most are just one or two bites.

The pacing is impressive — to fit that many courses into less than two hours, things need to move along at a nice clip, and the team here manages to do that without making the meal feel rushed. Sananikone tells anecdotes about each dish throughout, but he seems to still be getting used to being part of the show.

The first bite is thinly sliced cucumbers in a light sauce, a simple palate cleanser, followed by a savory Japanese egg custard.
The third course is a highlight. It's a slice of wagyu tenderloin with orange candied rind, creme fraiche, gochujang and garlic chips served on "clear bread" made from corn starch, potato starch and canola oil. "I was into molecular gastronomy and I saw something on Instagram and was like, oh, they made something pretty cool, but it was just the clear bread," Sananikone says. That led him to think about what pairs well with bread, and he landed on tartare. "It was just like, how do you elevate it and enhance it to make it fun, whimsical, appealing and tasteful for everyone to enjoy rather than something just to be cool?"

Next up, a simple mushroom dish wrapped in a tinfoil package tied with a string that resembles a Hershey Kiss, as  Sananikone jokes while explaining it. Three seafood courses — a pair of oysters, each topped with a different set of ingredients, a scallop served on its shell and a dish featuring red snapper — are all very fresh with some interesting pops, including a quail egg, crumbled chicharron and another molecular gastronomy favorite, foam.

Not as fresh-tasting is the nori in two of the courses, which is more chewy than crisp. But then come the best bites of the night: a trio of nigiri, each made with a different cut of tuna — lean, medium and fatty. (Don't brush the foie gras off the fatty tuna, as an influencer seated next to me did; it truly makes this bite over-the-top indulgent.)

A dish served under glass that's filled with smoke is an homage to Texas, but the escolar underneath is totally overpowered by a sweet barbecue sauce that pulls me straight out of nigiri happiness and into a fast food drive-through.

A yuzu sorbet palate cleanser is followed by jerk chicken yakitori inspired by the jerk chicken Sananikone got from a small stand in Jamaica while on a trip there with his best friend from college. Despite jerk being a seasoning blend spiked with Scotch Bonnet chiles and a variety of other powerful spices, this one has a very mild flavor subdued even more by the sweet potato puree on top.

Not lacking in flavor at all are the chunks of lobster brushed with tom yum butter and a single ravioli stuffed with potato and truffle swimming in a tom kha broth, though this dish did evoke that old Coco Chanel advice: "Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off."
The savory finale is what Sananikone says would be his last meal, a gai yang showcase served in a steamer basket. But the nam pa sauce on the side is the only savior of the unfortunately dry and under-seasoned yakitori-style chicken. The dish also includes a pork sausage and a piece of jerky that's, unfortunately, too tough to bite through.

The Instagram star of the meal has been the dessert, which resembles a bonsai tree — but if you look past the puffy cotton candy, there isn't much depth. The branch is a chocolate-covered pretzel and the whole thing is rooted in green tea tiramisu inside a wooden sake box, which is pleasant if not original.

Of course, Ukiyo just officially opened — I dined there during a two-week run of media and influencer invites designed to spark buzz. It served its first meal to the public on January 7, and I expect Sananikone and his team will continue to tweak things and improve as they get more feedback.

But back to that price tag: $175 per person, plus drinks, plus a 22 percent service charge. I had three cocktails throughout the meal, which lasted under two hours, making the total for one person nearly $290 for an experience that's shorter than watching Oppenheimer — or Barbie, for that matter.

For comparison, a meal at Brutø is currently $145 per person, which will go up to $160 when new executive chef Byron Gomez launches his first full menu there in March. Over at the recently opened Alma Fonda Fina in LoHi, you can get the chef's counter experience with an a la carte menu — $175 there would go far, even for two. It would also buy you plenty at Molotov, chef Bo Porytko's fun Eastern European eatery on East Colfax that has its own chef's counter. Hop Alley also just debuted a new chef's counter with a separate a la carte menu from its regular offerings.

And if you're looking for a sushi spot offering an omakase experience, consider the $120 option at Makizushico in Littleton or chef Duy Pham's $150 twenty-course meal at Hana Matsuri in Glendale.

Sananikone and his team have certainly brought something different to the scene with Ukiyo, and the city will likely see more ambitious restaurants now that Michelin stars are possible here. So diners who are willing and able to splurge, get ready.

Ukiyo is located at 1317 14th Street and is open for 6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. seatings Wednesday through Saturday by pre-paid reservation only. For more information, visit ukiyoomakase.com.