RESTAURANT NEWS | NASHVILLE
Noko Yaki Puts the Grill on the Table in Nashville
An Asian-inspired steakhouse where the beef cooks at the table is from the team behind Noko.
NOKO YAKI | MAP | INSTAGRAM
By Eric Barton
7:44 a.m. ET, Nov. 10, 2026
AUTHOR BIO: Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and a freelance journalist who has reviewed restaurants for more than two decades. Email him here.
At Noko Yaki, servers bring cubes of marbled Wagyu to the table and set them on grills built into the wood, and the meal arranges itself around them, small plates to share, banchan in little bowls, and beef seared in front of you.
The restaurant opened Nov. 6 in Nashville, Tennessee, the third from Noko Hospitality. They’re also behind Noko, which opened in East Nashville in March 2023, and Kase x Noko, the 14-seat omakase counter that followed in December 2024. Chef Dung “Junior” Vo leads the kitchen, and the idea is a steakhouse shaped by Japanese yakiniku and Korean barbecue.
Japanese A5
The beef program includes Australian wagyu, U.S. prime, dry-aged cuts, Japanese A5 from Miyazaki and Kagoshima, and Kobe beef from Hyogo Prefecture. Noko Yaki is one of only two restaurants in Tennessee registered by the Kobe Beef Marketing & Distribution Promotion Association to serve it. The signature spread puts prime filet, prime NY strip, wagyu ribeye, and wagyu galbi on the table together.
The grills are Japanese-made Shinpo grills, which pull smoke downward through concealed ducts, so the table stays clear while the beef sears. The dining room keeps the building’s original archways and exposed brickwork in a nearly 100-year-old West End building that long housed Tin Angel.
Shinpo grill
The wagyu sando stacks bacon XO, American cheese, and truffle aioli with gochugaru. The chopped wedge comes with sesame blue cheese dressing and a hearty blanket of chili crisp bacon. Lobster fried rice rounds out the larger plates. The sides get the same treatment: miso mashed potatoes with red miso, garlic confit, and Gruyere, and creamed spinach with creme fraiche and shirodashi. Behind the bar, beverage director Peyton Pound pours from dedicated martini and Old Fashioned menus, sake by the glass, and a wine list of more than 100 bottles.
Chopped wedge
Chef Dung “Junior” Vo
The opening also tests an idea the group has run since Noko opened: that a restaurant can pay for four-day workweeks, company-funded health insurance, paid time off, a travel stipend, and free therapy and gym memberships. The group says it has put more than half a million dollars into employee benefits and reinvests 5.5 percent of sales in its team. It puts its turnover at about 14.5 percent, against an industry average it cites at roughly 80 percent.
“We’ve never wanted to grow just for the sake of growing,” founder Jon Murray says. “From the beginning, we’ve wanted to prove that taking great care of people and building a successful restaurant business can go hand in hand.”
Market catch with shio koji beurre blanc
Vo grew up in Nha Trang, Vietnam, watching his family cook over open flames. In 2025, he became the youngest chef in Nashville to earn a James Beard semifinalist nod.
The steakhouse is the group’s biggest swing yet, and the bet is the same one it has made twice before: that a restaurant can look after its people and give its guests a good time, and that the two are the same project.
