Iron Chef tv star Akira Back to open namesake restaurant in Dallas

Iron Chef TV star Akira Back says he’ll open a namesake restaurant in Dallas next year. The Korean-born chef runs two respected restaurants in Las Vegas, Yellowtail at Bellagio and Kumi at Mandalay Bay, and Akira Back in Singapore. All are heavily influenced by Japanese or Korean cooking. Back began his culinary career at Kenichi in Aspen, later moving to run Kenichi kitchens in Austin and Kona, Hawaii. In Vegas, his celebrity customers include Taylor Swift, Eva Longoria, David Arquette and Joe Jonas.

“I love Texas and I love Dallas,” Back told me at the Vegas Uncork’d food and wine festival last month. I hinted at this news a couple of weeks ago. “I can’t wait to get back to Texas and cook there again,” said Back, adding that this will be his only namesake restaurant in the U.S. That’s Back in the photo above, hobnobbing at Uncork’d with uberfamous chef Alain Ducasse on the left.

At “Akira Back: Authentic Japanese Cuisine,” the chef says he’ll serve his acclaimed mix of Japanese and Korean flavors, including dishes like his Big Eye Tuna pizza, lobster carpaccio, Kobe feef tataki and ultra fresh seafood.

Look for an opening at Warren Buffet’s ginormous Grandscape development in The Colony sometime next year, along with a new Quincy’s Chicken Shack.