Sado, the highly anticipated second restaurant from Nick Bognar, opens March 28

The James Beard Award semifinalist chef also owns the acclaimed indo in Botanical Heights.

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After much anticipation, Sado (5210 Shaw) is slated to open on The Hill next Tuesday, March 28. (Reservations can be made on Tock beginning tomorrow, March 23.) Bloomberg has called it one of the "14 Most Anticipated Restaurants in America." Here's what to know before you go.

The Atmosphere

Sado (meaning “tea ceremony” in Japanese) provides acclaimed chef-owner Nick Bognar, who also owns indo in Botanical Heights, with the palette to create a sushi experience unlike any other in St. Louis. It's one that’s both familiar and unique, which honors the legacy of his parent's longtime restaurant, Nippon Tei, while “forging ahead into the land of the unexpected,” as he says.

Bognar and his parents, Ann and Mike Bognar, purchased the building that previously housed Giovanni’s on the Hill in 2021, after an extensive fire damaged the building four years earlier. Ann Bognar, who helped design the interior, describes the revived space as “energetic and diverse.” 

Upon entering the restaurant, guests immediately encounter a six-seat bar, with honey-colored wooden stools with sea-blue cushions.

Two small rooms contain minimalist décor evoking tea gardens and banquettes, upholstered in aqua and blue. There's also an eight-seat sushi bar with a wall depicting a sea of jellyfish, where owner Nick Bognar will hold court.

The main dining room is off to one side. Pops of color are provided by pieces of wall art selected by Ann Bognar, along with an immersive walls-and-ceiling hallway mural from local artist and Washington University graduate Jessica Brehmer, who also contributed a similarly spirited mural at indo.

Outside the dining room, a concrete patio is currently under renovation. “Eventually, that will be a heated/cooled, four-season area with its own entrance and its own sushi bar,” says Nick Bognar, “which we’ll use for omakase dinners and ticketed events. We don’t have a space for private events right now. That'll be it—that'll be my playground."

Sado seats 97 indoors, which makes it Bognar’s largest restaurant to date. The dining room and sushi bar can be booked for reservations; the beverage bar and bar area will be used for walk-ins, which Bognar feels is important, especially in a neighborhood like The Hill. “If you walk in," he says, "I don’t want you to walk out.”

The Food

“Sado is the culmination of everything we have worked toward at indo and Nippon Tei,” Bognar says in a release. “Sado is a translation of all my experiences." Bognar has worked to ensure that Sado's menu be as accessible as it is audacious. The food menu is broken into six sections.

Comfort-food staples include gyoza, pork belly steam buns, edamame, Brussel sprouts, and crab rangoon are found under Hot Tastings, while spicy tuna, salmon, and California rolls are among more than a dozen makimono. “To many people, rolls are sushi,” Bognar says. “I learned that at Nippon Tei, and I want guests at Sado to not have to spend a fortune to enjoy themselves."

Under the menu's Cold Tastings section are two tartares: a wagyu beef (pictured at right) and Nippon Tartare (“very similar to the recipe from my mom’s first restaurant,” Nick says), a colorful Miso Ginger Salad (pictured above), and Salmon Aguachile.

Another familiar item that Bognar boasts about is “real tempura,” as he calls it, as in carefully crafted tempura. At Sado, one person is assigned that task, dropping each piece in the fryer to order, with the batter almost sprinkled on. “It’s that labor-intensive and that important to get right,” says Bognar. “I love tempura, and St. Louis loves tempura.”

On the inaugural menu are three tempura options: acorn squash with miso caramel; jumbo black tiger prawns (scored and stretched on a sushi mat to appear twice their length) served with umami aioli, togarashi, and lime; and broccolini with dehydrated Meyer lemons, and umami aioli sprinkled with aged Parmesan, a salute to the restaurant’s Italian neighborhood. “We make the umami aioli with concentrated shiro dashi and different soy sauces," Bognar says. “It’s appropriately named—and crazy good.”

Nigiri and sashimi are familiar territory as well, but Bognar’s technique—dry-aging the fish—is not. Although fish has been preserved for centuries using salt (and salt speeds up the dry-aging process in beef), it does not have to be used when dry-aging fish. “Japanese chefs have been aging fish for a long time,” Bognar says. “The process changes the mouthfeel and texture, especially for sushi. Dry-aged fish has less moisture, so the fats and flavors are concentrated. There’s a slight chewiness, but you enjoy it because there’s so much going on. And then it melts and it’s gone.”

Bognar bought a small dry-aging refrigerator and converted one of the prior restaurant’s walk-ins to a larger dry-aging unit, so there’s practically no limit to how much fish he’ll be able to age.  “The idea is that we will dry-age pretty much everything we get our hands on," he says, "which will change the game. Some fish we age for a day, some for a week, depending on the size and species. Some chefs are aging tuna for a month, like some chefs do their beef. It’s scary to age something that expensive for that long, but I’m ready to start tinkering.” The inaugural nigiri/sashimi menu has 18 items, including three vegan preparations: avocado, mushroom, and Japanese eggplant. 

Although other local sushi chefs are experimenting with the dry-aging process, Bognar is the only one cooking fish on a Japanese Yakatori grill (Bognar has nicknamed it the “yak”) over white binchotan charcoal, known for its super-high heat and ability to impart a glass-like sear and a delicate smoke flavor in a short amount of time. “But you do have to dry age the fish first,” Bognar notes, “in order to get that crunchy, puffy, chicharrón-like skin that’s so important.” It follows that one of Sado’s most intriguing menu categories is the Robata Yaki section, meaning “fireside cooking” (a technique he learned while working at Uchiko, the famed Japanese restaurant in Austin, Texas, which had a robata yaki station).

Sado’s inaugural yaki menu includes a dry-aged salmon and madai, a dry-aged Japanese sea bream. Bognar was on a year-long waiting list to receive sustainable unagi, farm raised in Maine (“one of the only eel farms in America or anywhere else other than China”), which is shipped directly to him. Bognar braises it in a soy-mirin sauce, grills it to give it a quick char, and serves it atop a rice bowl. Also noteworthy: the dry-aged kinmedai (pictured below), a prized, white-fleshed, deepwater fish that’s crisped up and served with green curry pepper sauce, smoked eggplant, and Thai crunch.

Asked how the sushi market has changed in recent years, Bognar says better sourcing is yielding a higher-quality product and that diners’ sushi knowledge has improved. “If you can separate yourself from the mainstream by doing things like dry-aging and sourcing hard to find fish," he says, "I believe St. Louisans are ready for it.”

The Drinks

Webster says she was drawn to crafting drinks long before she was old enough to even pour one but has made up for lost time as beverage director at indo and Sado, where she directs the cocktail, wine, sake, beer, and tea programs. For old-school purists who insist that the only proper beverage accompaniment for sushi is sake, Webster disagrees: "With the proper focus, a cocktail can complement anything.”

Webster feels a synergy with Bognar while crafting the drink menu. “Nick’s flavor profiles can be so unusual that I draw inspiration from his inspiration, and I understand where he’s coming from," says Webster. "My job is to make sure the flavor connections are apparent.”  

Among the standouts: the Higashi Tini (higashi means 'east'), made from a recipe that took four months to perfect. “It was the first one I started working on and the last one I finalized,” she says. “I always wanted to like dirty martinis but never did, so I wanted to make one that even I would drink.” She uses a Japanese vodka or gin; a “dirty sherry” infused with garlic, black pepper, Thai chilies, and MSG; and an olive brine made with Datu Puti, a spicy Filipino vinegar with garlic, pickled peppers, and chilies, then adds sesame oil, olive oil, black pepper, and lemon zest. Castelvetrano olives are soaked in the brine and used as garnish. “From that description, it might sound like a spicy martini, but it’s not,” she says. “Just a really good dirty one.”

The wine list spans 70 bottles, with 10 by-the-glass selections. The 15-item sake collection is categorized by grade, depending on the rice polish level and whether alcohol has been added to the milling process. At present, plans call for Sado to serve only Japanese beers: Asahi, Sapporo, and possibly Hitachino. Similar to indo (and unlike other Japanese restaurants), Webster predicts that Sado’s most popular beverages will be the cocktails, in no small part due to the stories behind them. 

The Chef

Bognar already has an impressive resume. He picked up a semifinalist nomination for “Best Chef: Midwest” in January. (The finalists will be selected March 29). It’s not the first time he’s been nominated for a James Beard Award. He received two nominations in 2020, including for Rising Star Chef of the Year and a Best New Restaurant nomination for indo. GQ also named indo among the Best New Restaurants of 2020, and Food & Wine proclaimed Bognar a “Best New Chef” that same year.

In addition to owning indo, he helped oversee the family-operated Nippon Tei in Ballwin, which closed last month, after 21 years, to prepare for the debut of Sado. He also helped launch Ramen Tei, one of the region's first ramen restaurant. Years ago, he temporarily left St. Louis to work at such restaurants as the famed Uchiko in Austin, Texas, before returning home and dazzling diners with his fabulous omakase (chef’s choice) presentations. 

Today, on the cusp of opening Sado, Bognar maintains a level-headed approach. “I’m serious about food, and I’ve been lucky to be surrounded by seriously talented people,” he says, “but I’m not the most serious guy.” 

Sado will be open 5–9 p.m. Tuesday–Thursday, 5–10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 5–9 p.m. Sunday.

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