Menus delve ever-deeper into the ingredients, flavors and cultures that are the hallmarks of Asian cuisine.

It wasn’t that long ago that dining out at an Asian restaurant in this country regularly meant Chinese. More recently, Thai and Japanese restaurants made inroads in the U.S. market, especially in larger cities and in immigrant communities. These days, Asian cuisine cuts a much deeper path in foodservice, encompassing the flavors and dishes of Vietnam, Korea and the Philippines. Similarly, Indian food has found a greater appreciation and a broader audience beyond the lunch buffets of the past. Even distinct regional cuisines, such as the food of China’s Sichuan and Hunan provinces, have found welcome homes in restaurants all their own, digging deeper into the ingredients, flavors and cultures that make them unique.

Asian cuisine is many things to many people, which means plenty of delicious options with equally expansive price points and service styles for diners. That’s an observation shared by Chef Thai Dang of HaiSous, an award-winning Vietnamese restaurant in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood that he opened with his wife, Danielle Dang, in 2017. A few years later, the couple opened Cà Phê Dá next door, a more casual spot that specializes in Vietnamese coffee and street food. “The Asian dining segment has evolved tremendously,” he says. “With social media available 24/7, people can learn and share about Asian food from all over Asia easily.”

With that evolution came other changes. “A lot of the mainstream trends that we see today are starting to shift into the Asian category,” says Darren Tristano, CEO of Foodservice Results, an Illinois-based consultancy, citing one trend that plays into core Asian characteristics: “Plant-based options are influencing a lot of what you’re seeing. Where we are typically used to beef, chicken, pork and seafood, you’re starting to see more vegetarian and vegan items.”

Originally opened in 2008 in Mansfield, Texas, with an emphasis on Thai cuisine, Blue Mint has since expanded its menu to include Chinese and Japanese dishes. Photo by Spot Hopper

To accommodate Americans’ growing taste for a variety of Asian cuisines, some restaurants feature menu items from more than one country. While tapping into the flavors that have earned those dishes signature status, inventive chefs are adding their own creativity. This trend reflects the focus of the Dangs’ upcoming Crying Tiger restaurant, a partnership with restaurant group Lettuce Entertain You. “It’s a way to showcase my cooking and love for Southeast Asia,” Thai Dang says. “What will be unique about Crying Tiger is that it will highlight flavors and textures from several parts of Southeast Asia and pay homage to their shared heritage. The restaurant’s menu draws inspiration from Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and beyond.”

Launched in 2008 by Kenny and Ooy Amartana, immigrants from Thailand, Blue Mint Thai originally sought to bring authentic Thai flavors to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The restaurant has since expanded its menu to include dishes from China and Japan. The brand has two different concepts: The original location in Mansfield, Texas, is a traditional, sit-down restaurant, and a more recent storefront in Midlothian is a quick-serve-style spot. A third location, currently under construction in Arlington, will be a fast-casual experience with a full bar. This year, Blue Mint Thai also debuted a kiosk inside Globe Life Field in a partnership with the Texas Rangers.

“Asian cuisine has evolved significantly over the past few decades, with customers more focused on fresh ingredients while becoming more health conscious than ever,” says Alisa Dodenhoff, director of business operations, Blue Mint Thai. “Our recipes have been passed down for three generations, and it’s important to us to keep these plates authentic without ‘Americanizing’ them to appease local palates.”

Then there’s P.F. Chang’s, which has more than 300 restaurants in 20-plus countries. When it opened in Scottsdale, Arizona, in 1993, it served traditional Chinese dishes, eventually transitioning to an American Chinese cuisine. Today, the chain’s menu features items from Japan, Korea and Thailand.

Tristano declares Thai, Japanese and Korean as the three most-dominant Asian cuisines in U.S. foodservice, noting that when it comes to menu development, it’s less about merging their signature ingredients and flavors into a single dish and more about broader inclusivity on the menu. “It’s not so much fusion, but the expanded breadth of the menu to include different types of food from each of those three regions,” says Tristano. “It not only eliminates the veto vote but gives diners more occasions where craveability, which is very big with these types of foods, is going to drive consumers.”

With the increased presence of different Asian cuisines comes the need for more ingredients and different preparation techniques and cooking equipment. “If you’re doing Chinese, it’s wok cooking, while if you’re doing Japanese, you’ve got to have a sushi bar,” says Tristano.

On the ground floor of one of the country’s top grossing steakhouses, Maple & Ash, Eight Bar offers Japanese-inspired dishes on its golden omakase menu, including Hiramasa crudo with spicy citrus ponzu sauce. Photo courtesy of MADN Agency

Style Variances

Many Asian restaurants, however, prefer to shine the light on one country. Or, in the case of Chicago’s Akahoshi Ramen, on a singular dish. Created by Mike Satinover, Akahoshi is a 14-year passion project that showcases his love of ramen, which began during a college semester abroad in Sapporo, Japan, and continued with intense at-home research to create the perfect bowl of noodle soup. Since opening, the small neighborhood restaurant has appeared on numerous best-of lists, including for The New York Times and Bon Appetit, offering five types of ramen.

To produce the noodles in the five types of ramens on the menu, Satinover uses a special machine imported from Japan for part of the process. The noodles are then aged for 48 hours, which affects their texture, flavor and appearance. Akahoshi Ramen makes close to 900 portions of noodles every week. “The noodles are the most complicated, most labor-intensive and most nuanced part of the dish,” he says.

Still, the other components in each ramen dish, notably the broth and inclusions, use equally precise techniques and traditional ingredients. “If we do our jobs well, the bowl will be compelling from the first sip to the last,” says Satinover. 

Fried chicken styles from different parts of Asia have also found a passionate audience in the U.S. In addition to Korea-style spots like Bonchon and Kyochon, and the Philippines’ Jollibee, Japan’s karaage is starting to gain popularity, as evidenced by the debut of fast-casual Papa Kato Karaage in Toledo, Ohio, which also adds a fourth concept to the family-owned group of Japanese restaurants.

After studying abroad in Japan, Mike Satinover began an intense deep dive into ramen with the end result being the lauded Akahoshi Ramen restaurant in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood. Photo by Alex Zandro

Interactive dining experiences continue to expand post-pandemic with eatertainment-type chains finding fans who want more from their dining experiences. In the Asian cuisine segment, hot pot-focused brands, where guests cook proteins and vegetables in various flavored broths at their table, are one example seeing growth. This is demonstrated by KPOT Korean BBQ and Hot Pot, the latter of which opened 39 new locations in 2023. This trend hasn’t gone unnoticed by Tristano. “Hot pot restaurants have gone mainstream,” he says. “When we look at buffets and the all-you-care-to-eat segment, we know those have struggled for decades and have really been destroyed due to COVID, but the hot pot restaurants are growing in popularity.” 

With a good part of the cooking being conducted at tables, that frees up space in the kitchen. “But now you’re also broadening the number of ingredients, so you need more prep areas and refrigeration,” says Tristano. “There needs to be more emphasis on the walk-ins and on storage space.” Hot pot restaurants also often require greater dishwashing capacity, as diners typically use more plates.

Sushi: On a Roll

Sushi has experienced changes both in fine dining, with omakase restaurants gaining in popularity, and in more casual settings.

Created 15 years ago by a trio of friends who wanted to make sushi more accessible, Ohio-based FUSIAN has grown to seven locations around the state. “We had seen fast casual proliferate in just about every cuisine except for Japanese,” says co-founder Stephen Harman, adding that their collective love for sushi was another motivating factor. “Fifteen years ago, sushi had a perception, especially in America, as this super high-end, exclusive delicacy, which it certainly can be. But when you look at the ingredients that go into it, sushi can be served quickly and with quality.”

Founded in 2010 by three childhood friends to change the way people experience sushi, FUSIAN now has seven locations in Ohio. Photo courtesy of FUSIANAt FUSIAN, customers have the option of ordering signature rolls — ranging from the more traditional (spicy tuna and crispy shrimp) to the more unusual (PB&J and roasted chicken) — or customized rolls, bowls and salads. For the custom creations, FUSIAN has a walk-the-line setup where diners select their preferred ingredients. Protein options include roasted salmon, tuna and tempura shrimp, while hand-cut items range from shelled edamame to avocado to seasonal fruit. A dozen dressings and toppings are also available. An estimated 90% of FUSIAN’s guests opt for the customized approach.

 “We say that if you love sushi, you’ll love us. But if you’ve never had sushi before, you’ll love us, too,” says Harman.

One way FUSIAN is able to offer fresh, quality ingredients without budget-busting prices is through automation. Since day one, the team has used a Japanese machine that creates perfectly proportioned squares of sushi rice used in the rolls. Those squares and the designated fillings are then rolled by hand with traditional bamboo mats. Each roll is placed into a cutter that produces 10 identical pieces. In the back of the house, another piece of equipment mixes the sushi rice with vinegar and then cools it down to the appropriate temperature.

“We learned very early on that if we can help automate some of the highly skilled positions, we can put more of our attention into food quality and hospitality while creating a consistent product,” says Harman. “But we’re not trying to automate our way out of the tactile part of the process, as we genuinely believe that people want to see their food being made.”

With that in mind, the design of FUSIAN restaurants provides visibility into the kitchen. “Our restaurant builds are basically an effort to provide full transparency all the way from the front to the back of the restaurant,” says Harman. “Most of the food prep we do is literally done with a knife, and so we want to get credit for that.”

Steakhouse concept Maple & Ash, which has locations in Chicago, Miami, Scottsdale and soon Boston, is an unlikely destination to find sushi. But at its Chicago location’s lounge, dubbed Eight Bar, sushi’s success led Maple & Ash to launch a special omakase menu.

Headed up by sushi chef Hari Chan, the omakase menu consists of seven or so courses featuring the freshest fish of the day, such as lightly torched toro nigiri or king crab maki. “We love the fact that you can enjoy a green salad, oysters on the half shell, and an array of sushi and nigiri while polishing off a burger,” says Maple & Ash chef Austin Adler.

Chan reports that a nori toaster plays an essential role in the kitchen. “It keeps the seaweed dried and crispy,” he explains. A robata charcoal grill with binchotan charcoal helps enhance the flavor of the Wagyu beef served as part of the omakase menu.

While Asian-themed restaurants will always draw inspiration from their heritage, new technologies will surely make their way into these kitchens in the future. For example, Tristano sees AI playing a more dominant role in the kitchens of Asian restaurants, as it will most likely in restaurants of all types. He also predicts commercial versions of popular at-home air fryers will find their way into restaurant kitchens, as well.