Wabi House is an Izakaya-style restaurant, specializing in premium Japanese ramen. It opened in 2018 at the corner of Magnolia Avenue and Eighth Avenue in Fort Worth. Featuring yakitori (grilled skewered meats) and Japanese small plates, it boasts some of the best ramen you can get stateside. Now Wabi House is opening a new location this fall in Old Town Keller at 111 West Vine Street.
Keller’s will be the largest Wabi House ever.
Wabi House founders and chefs Dien “Chef D” Nguyen and Kenzo Tran run three Wabi House locations currently in Fort Worth, Dallas, and Frisco, plus Piranha Killer Ramen in Arlington, and Piranha Izakaya in San Antonio. Kenzo Tran also opened Pho District in Fort Worth’s So7, as a separate project. But, he no longer owns that.
We were excited when we first heard that Wabi House was expanding to Keller. Kenzo Tran tells Fort Worth Digital Diary that he hopes it will be a late fall opening, before year’s end.
“It will have an open-air bar and will be our biggest Wabi House yet with seating for 300,” Tran says. The location is some 5,200 square feet. The restaurant’s open-air bar will be a breath of fresh air in Keller, where that indoor/outdoor dining is a rarity. The Fort Worth location has one the city’s best rooftop bars and patios.
As with the three current Wabi House locations, the menu will be one you’ve come to love, but Tran says, “our chefs come up with location-specific items, as well, to distinguish them from one another.”
For instance, you can only taste the garlic albacore in Dallas (or on the menu at Piranha Killer Ramen), and the scallop sashimi in orange ponzu can only be found at The Star in Frisco. In the same way, Keller will have its own unique selections when it opens this fall.
Izakaya-style dining is gaining steam, with a new izakaya, called Ichiro, having just opened in South Main Village, and Hanabi Ramen and Izakaya still in the Cultural District. But alongside the former Shinjuku Station, Wabi House was one of the first on the scene to introduce this small plates, yakitori, and ramen concept to Fort Worth.
It’s common to find snug izakayas dotted near train stations all around Japan. Places to meet friends and kick back for a well-deserved snack and beer after work. You’ll also find slender, stand-up bars serve piping hot ramen bowls along side streets, where strangers sidle up next to one another, slurping with abandon.
Wabi House is special in many respects. It perfects Japanese street food, including takoyaki (octopus fritters), and gyoza (pork-filled dumplings), as well as its sizzling yakitori selection of okra wrapped in bacon, chicken skewers or a grilled lamb chops just to name a few. But the real standout is its ramen.
If you’re not a fan of ramen, that’s probably because you’ve only been served mushy noodles in bland broth. There’s an awful lot of that around. Wabi House, however, is as close as you can get to what you’d find in Japan, with springy, specially made noodles, and a broth that reveals the many hours it took to craft. Then you layer on the good stuff to your hearts content, with a list of toppings to customize your bowl.
Choose from chicken broth-based Tonkatsu or Shoyu, or sample the unique dry garlic dressed in dashi butter. There’s even a vegetarian veersion to explore. With prices under $15 (or $9 at lunch), Wabi House ramen remains one of the best bargains around. And, that’s by design.
Kenzo Tran admits, “The restaurant business is tough.” But his company lives by a special motto. He calls it “Full Circle.”
“What gets me going in the restaurant business is to have both satisfied customers and satisfied employees,” he says. After all, you can’t have one without the other in the hospitality industry.
“Your employees have to feel like they did a good job for the day, and your customers have to feel like they enjoyed a good value and had a good experience. When everybody’s happy, then you have a full circle,” Tran says. “That’s the ultimate meaning of success in the restaurant business.”
He says the feel and design of the new Keller location will feel familiar. Its design will reflect the same vibrant Asian artworks and murals, as well as natural wood elements, giving the space an earthy and grounded feel. We can’t wait to check out the largest Wabi House ever when it opens in Keller by late fall.
