Nami Nori Is Rolling into Williamsburg With a Second Location

It’s official: Nami Nori is headed to Brooklyn. The team behind the hit sushi hand roll spot, which opened in the West Village close to two years ago, is set to open another restaurant at 236 North 12th Street, near the south end of McCarren Park, in Williamsburg. The restaurant will be a second location of Nami Nori, a spokesperson for the team confirms, but exact plans for the menu are not known at this time.

The team only recently finalized the Williamsburg expansion, according to the restaurant spokesperson, and there isn’t an opening date on the calendar yet.

Owners Taka Sakaeda, Jihan Lee, and Lisa Limb — veterans of the three-Michelin-starred Masa, famously home to an omakase priced at $650 per person, before tax — opened the original location of Nami Nori in September 2019 in a bid to serve high-quality fish at an affordable price. At a time when luxe sushi dinners were becoming the go-to meal for omakase bros and corporate card-wielding New Yorkers, the restaurant headed in the opposite direction, serving taco-shaped hand rolls in a less-formal-yet-sleek dining room (even its outdoor setup is well thought out). Nami Nori was an instant hit.

Two months after opening, the restaurant received a glowing two-star review from New York Times critic Pete Wells, who praised its owners’ ability to serve “irresistible” hand rolls for $5 to $7 each. With “a modest appetite or a minor act of self-discipline,” one could eat at the restaurant for $30, before tax and tip, Wells argued. Eater critic Robert Sietsema agreed and credited Nami Nori with making sushi “fun and affordable again.”