Aba Nashville
THE WEEKLY BITE
Travis Kelce’s Steakhouse and Nine Other Big Restaurant Openings This Week
By Eric Barton | Sept. 17, 2025
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.
This week’s restaurant news came with a sports-celebrity flourish: Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes finally opened their long-teased Kansas City steakhouse, 1587 Prime. In NYC, Tribeca scored Muku, a Japanese tasting counter that’s already earning whispers as one of the toughest seats in New York. Add in a Cambodian seafood spot in Philly, a Greek palace in Dallas, and a pizzeria in the West Village, and it’s a reminder that new places to eat arrive faster than we can clear the last receipt from our wallets.
1587 Prime — Kansas City
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Kansas City now has a steakhouse with a quarterback’s jersey number in its name, thanks to Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes. They went big—10,000 square feet, two floors, private rooms for when you don’t want the Chiefs Kingdom breathing down your neck.
The menu runs the gamut from shrimp cocktails to Wagyu steaks, the kind of place where the sides are almost as showy as the people who will inevitably post selfies from inside.
Aba — Nashville
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Wedgewood-Houston just scored its own Aba, the Lettuce Entertain You spinoff with sister restaurants in Austin and Chicago. The space feels like it’s built for groups who want mezze but also the cocktails and music to stretch dinner into the night. Chef CJ Jacobson layers his Mediterranean cooking with things like hot honey halloumi and pork kebabs, dishes you’ll end up passing around the table. The space is designed for it too—indoor bar flowing outdoors, valet out front, and enough polished details to make it feel like Nashville’s newest destination.
Ayah — New York City
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Ayah opened in SoHo like it had been there all along—arched doorways, velvet curtains, carved tables straight out of Marrakesh. The menu is unapologetically Moroccan, full of couscous, tajines, whole racks of lamb, the kind of food that lands with drama when it hits the table. They keep the bar open until 2 a.m., so it doubles as both a dinner spot and the place you stumble into after.
Avra Estiatorio — Dallas
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Dallas doesn’t do subtle, and Avra seems to know it. The Greek restaurant group opened with 14,000 square feet of dining rooms, glass walls, and enough greenery to suggest someone imported Mykonos to Uptown. As it has in several cities now, Avra is serving whole fish, octopus, Greek salads, and oysters on ice—this is seafood for people willing to pay for the freshest and best, cooked simply with classic Greek sides.
Bosco — San Francisco, CA
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Bosco slid into the old Bellota space in SoMa, which already had the bones for something flashy. The Absinthe Group doubled down on Italy: wood-fired dishes, house-made pastas, and a whiff of fermentation that makes you think they’ve been plotting this one for years. It’s the kind of place that says “Italian” but then pulls it off with California swagger. (And no, it is not named after George’s ATM code.)
There’s everything from soba made with flour from his family farm to foie gras chawanmushi. It’s precise, exacting, and just intimate enough to feel like you’ve wandered into a secret.
Palladino’s Steak & Seafood — New York City
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Grand Central just picked up a steakhouse, and it’s not the kind that hides underground. Palladino’s opened right on the North and West Balcony, a perch for commuters who want something better than a pretzel before their train. Joseph Palladino and chef Sam Hazen built the menu straight out of the steak-and-seafood playbook, a safe bet for anyone who wants to build their own ice cream sundae before catching Metro-North.
Sao — Philadelphia
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East Passyunk Avenue now has Cambodian seafood thanks to Phila and Rachel Lorn, the couple behind Mawn. Sao is tiny—just a few dozen seats—but they’re loading the menu with oysters, whole fish, and a noodle dish already threatening to become the thing everyone Instagrams. With a full bar and late-night energy, it feels like South Philly got a new anchor.
Tahini’s — Loves Park, IL
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Shawarma doesn’t usually come with a passport stamp, but Tahini’s carried one over the border. The Canadian brand picked Loves Park, outside Rockford, for its first U.S. outpost, opening with a menu that bounces from butter chicken to jerk chicken to Korean barbecue. It’s fast, it’s fusion, and it suddenly makes the strip-mall lunch run a lot more interesting.
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