Kosher dining options in the nation’s capital are few and far between, but a sushi restaurant opening in the coming days will add to the handful of choices available.
Oro Nami is slated to hold a pair of pre-opening events this week ahead of its official launch on Sunday. The restaurant and bar, operating under the supervision of the Vaad HaRabanim of Greater Washington, is situated in the West End at 2512 N.W. Pennsylvania Ave., which was the site of The Setting Restaurant and Bar.
Oro Nami will seat around 30-35 people, with “a lounge feel, where people can have business meetings, where they can go for date night, just like a vibe like that,” co-owner Harrison Furman told JNS.
The restaurant will host a VIP event on Wednesday evening, followed by a Young Jewish Professionals gathering on Thursday night, before the grand opening for the general public on Sunday.
Furman, a financial professional, is teaming with Harold Willner, owner of College Park’s Sushi 7, and Dino Lonzano, who owns the adjacent Market Street Diamonds and was the proprietor of The Setting.
Due to the current security climate, armed guards will initially be on hand, and Lonzano’s diamond business next door has a guard on duty.
Regular hours will be Sunday from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. and Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Oro Nami will open with a staff of about 10, including a combined general manager-slash-mashgiach, who directly supervises the restaurant’s kosher status.
The menu features the standards, plus specialties like jalapeno, fried salmon and green dragon rolls, an appetizer list that includes fried tuna sticks and Asian fries, along with poke bowls, sashimi and nigiri.
That’s in addition to the drink list.
“We have over 70 bottles of Japanese whiskey, bourbon, rye, Scotch, Irish and even Israeli whiskey,” Furman said. “Even if you don’t like whiskey, we have many other options from sake to cocktails.”
Oro Nami will also offer catering options.
Furman told JNS his background in the restaurant business comes from working for his father’s restaurant in his youth, and through his former work doing food and beverage analytics and labor analytics for MGM National Harbor Hotel and Casino in the Washington suburb of Oxon Hill, Md.
He said he’s taken some of the models he learned as a senior analyst and is applying them to Oro Nami.
Furman, who attended school in the capital and has been back on and off for the last 10 years, is currently based in Miami.
He told JNS that he loves Char Bar, Washington’s most well-known kosher restaurant, but has become spoiled in the Surfside area. He said he wants to bring a greater selection to D.C., and after kicking around some ideas in his head over the last couple of years, he and one of his partners agreed kosher sushi was the way to go.
“I reached out to the Vaad, and the Vaad told me to reach out to Harold, and the sushi lounge partnership was formed,” Furman told JNS. “I love sushi. I love a nice whiskey lounge, and I figured these two would be great together to create a second sit-down restaurant in D.C.”