Why would three very different sushi restaurants pick the same few blocks of downtown New Orleans in one year? The usual answer is a growing appetite for sushi. That's true as far as it goes. Ian McNulty of The Times-Picayune called these "heady times for sushi lovers in New Orleans," and Axios described the city's sushi scene as growing. The more useful answer for someone living downtown sits in the details. Each new place is built around a group of people who were already moving through the CBD and Warehouse District. One counts on game days, one on theater nights and traffic lights, and one on a dozen people who planned ahead.
That changes how you'd actually use them. A conveyor belt, a hibachi room with glass walls and a 20-course counter aren't competing for the same night. They're set up for different hours, different reasons to be downtown, and different amounts of planning.
Next Door to Juicy Seafood, With an Eye on the Superdome
KOI Revolving Sushi opened Wednesday, Sept. 23, at 1200 Poydras St., Suite 103, near the Loyola Avenue intersection. Fox 8 reported it as the city's first conveyor-belt sushi restaurant. Plates move past your seat, and you take a plate or let it go by.
The location was chosen with care. KOI sits next to Juicy Seafood, which has the same operating partner, Leo Wu. Before KOI opened, Wu told What Now New Orleans, "We've been busy at Juicy Seafood, especially when there are games or events at the Superdome." In the same report, Wu described the second restaurant as a way to capture that foot traffic with a format that was new to the city. Revolving sushi, or kaiten-zushi, had already reached Baton Rouge and Lafayette but not New Orleans.
That event-crowd thinking shows up in the format. In the same pre-opening report, belt plates were quoted from $3.50 for basic items like a tuna roll up to $7.95 for larger specialty rolls. KOI's own New Orleans page now lists more than 100 sushi, hibachi, appetizer, dessert and drink items, each priced separately so diners can build a meal at their own pace. A group heading to an event can eat as much or as little as time allows.
A few details have changed since opening day, so check before you go:
- The soft opening was walk-in only. The first announcement said no reservations, and no hibachi or alcohol during that phase. The restaurant's current page now has a reservation link and lists hibachi and drinks.
- Hours differ by source. On opening day, Fox 8 said the website listed an 11 a.m. start every day. KOI's online ordering page currently lists 10:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday and Wednesday, closed Tuesday, and 10:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Thursday through Sunday.
- Belt prices came out before opening. The $3.50 and $7.95 figures were published in August, before the first plate went around.
A Corner Designed for Drivers Waiting at the Light
A few blocks away, the next opening is aimed at a different kind of traffic. Uni Sushi & Hibachi is slated to open by the end of the year in a 3,700-square-foot ground-floor space at Roosevelt Way and Common Street, next to the Orpheum Theater. The city issued a permit in July for a buildout costing more than $1 million. The space was Cleo's Mediterranean Cuisine and Convenience from 2013 to 2017.
The building's owner explains the bet better than any description of the menu could. Thomas Gigliotti Jr.'s company, Parking Management Services, owns seven garages and runs valet service for 58 hotels in New Orleans. Lin and Sky Huang, relatives of his, will run the restaurant. Here's how he described the design to The Times-Picayune:
"We're wrapping glass all the way around the building. It's going to open that whole corner up beautifully, so when people are stopped at the red light, they'll be seeing flames going up, and it'll be a little showtime."
Plans filed with the city call for more than 100 seats across three dining rooms and a bar area, with four hibachi tables, a sushi counter, alcohol service and hours of 11 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week. If those hours hold, Uni would be the one new sushi room on this list still open after an Orpheum performance lets out.
The surrounding blocks are filling in too. Gigliotti has more than $1.2 million in separate renovations planned for the University Parking Garage above the restaurant. Nearby, Kailas Companies is turning the upper 18 floors of the former Bank of New Orleans building at 1010 Common St. into the 250-room Fairmont New Orleans. Uni's corner sits between a theater, a garage and a future hotel, three steady sources of people walking or driving past.
No later report has confirmed an opening date, so "by the end of the year" is the most recent target on record.
Twelve Seats That Don't Rely on Foot Traffic
Kira Omakase works the other way around. It opened Aug. 20 as a separate restaurant inside Kira, at 601 Tchoupitoulas St. in the Warehouse District. It has 12 seats, each guest is served personally across 20 courses, and seatings cost $175, Thursday through Sunday, booked through OpenTable. No one walks in off the street at a reservation-only counter that small. People who booked days ahead fill those seats.
The chef is the reason people book. Yoshi Okai, from Kyoto, made his name in Austin as head sushi chef at Uchi and Uchiko, then led Otoko, a 12-seat omakase where he prepared every bite. He was one of Food & Wine's Best New Chefs in 2017. He moved to New Orleans this spring, though he first came to the city in 2003 to play a show at the Mermaid Lounge. He also picks the music, a mix of jazz, dark wave and rock.
According to McNulty's preview, the menu changes with the seasons and includes about 15 pieces of nigiri, with sake pairings available. The restaurant also plans special events, including whole tuna breakdowns. Those events are worth watching for if you live close enough to get there on short notice.
The larger restaurant around the counter is still new itself. Kira opened Dec. 11, 2025, in the former Mister Oso space, and Eater described it as a mix of Greek taverna and Japanese omakase. Local restaurateur Billy Blatty created it, and he recruited Okai after eating at the chef's Austin restaurant. So the omakase counter sits inside a room that already had a following, and it doesn't need anyone passing on the sidewalk.
The Downtown Sushi Rooms That Were Already Here
The new places join a downtown that already had sushi at several levels. Kenji Omakase at 217 Camp St. describes itself as a traditional Japanese omakase and takes reservations. Sushi Takumi at 703 Carondelet St. calls itself a neighborhood sushi restaurant and offers dine-in and online ordering. Geisha Sushi Bistro at 111 Tchoupitoulas St. is open seven days a week and takes reservations.
Set beside them, this year's openings don't really add more of the same. Downtown already had an omakase counter, a neighborhood spot and a bistro near the riverfront end of Tchoupitoulas. The 2026 openings add formats nobody downtown offered before: a belt next to a seafood restaurant that fills up on Superdome event days, a glass-walled hibachi room at one of the CBD's busiest theater corners, and a 12-seat counter run by a nationally known chef.
Picking a Room by the Kind of Night
If you live or work downtown, the clearest way to sort these places is by how much notice you have and why you're out.
- Weekday lunch with no plan. KOI's belt and individually priced plates work for a short meal, and the ordering page shows a 10:30 a.m. start every day except Tuesday.
- Before or after a Superdome event. KOI was designed for this, at least according to the operator's own explanation of why he opened next to Juicy Seafood.
- A late dinner after the Orpheum. Once Uni opens, its filed plans show service until midnight every night, right next door to the theater.
- A booked-ahead occasion. Kira Omakase's Thursday-through-Sunday seatings at $175, or the traditional omakase at Kenji on Camp Street.
- A regular neighborhood order. Sushi Takumi on Carondelet and Geisha on Tchoupitoulas both take online orders.
These restaurants open and adjust quickly, so check hours and menus directly before heading out. That goes double for KOI in its first weeks and for Uni until it announces an opening date.
Restaurants like these are part of what a downtown address offers, and a new room with a known chef or a lunch-hour belt can change a block. If you own a condo in the CBD or Warehouse District and want to know how your building compares as these blocks fill in, Joseph S. Pappalardo Jr. and the Wurth team can walk you through it. Get a Free Home Valuation.
