Openings

Arami’s New Downtown Project is Arami Go!

We had the story yesterday by way of 312 Dining Diva that Arami planned to open a second restaurant— and possibly others down the line— in the Mag Mile area. At the time, we expressed skepticism that what is most distinctive about Arami— the personal attention of chef B.K. Park— could translate to satellite locations. A cook there named Scott Malloy tweeted back that “I promise there is more to the story… the lunch spot is true. it will not be arami [as] you know it. very cool and exciting concept.” We tried to get further information, and an official Arami twitter account confirmed/explained a little more: “It’s not going to be quite like the original. The focus will be on quick lunch items.”

Later in the day, Dish provided a few more details: the name is Arami Go! and part of the plan, at least, is to sell “bento boxes” in which the ingredients of good sushi rolls (no, that’s not an oxymoron, though we admit you have a point) are kept separate and you can roll them yourself for maximum freshness. This solves at least part of the obvious problem with boxed-to-go sushi, which is, no matter how good it is and who the chef behind it is, it kind of comes off like a commodity product when it’s in the same clamshell container as at the Jewels. At the same time, we’re not sure how many times we’d want to roll our own sushi at lunch, but we’re going to assume that that’s just one example of a new take on Japanese food in the downtown area and, if it works, beyond.

Arami’s New Downtown Project is Arami Go!