A Look Behind Bar Otaku

Sarah Gavigan reinvents one of her Gulch restaurants into Bar Otaku, a place for good bar food, stiff drinks, and friendly gatherings.

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Bar Otaku

Sarah Gavigan has become a master of reinvention.

From working as an agent in Los Angeles to making a move to Nashville; from obsessed ramen home cook to pop-up chef to brick-and-mortar restaurant owner. Now, she’s made yet another shift, taking her Little Octopus restaurant space (originally set in East Nashville, then relocated to the Gulch) and turning it into Bar Otaku.

Mirroring the “otaku” theme (meaning to have a deep obsession) that she launched at Otaku Ramen, Bar Otaku is modeled after an izakaya, or a Japanese pub. The change came swiftly this past winter, due to the economics of running a restaurant in Nashville these days. But, in just 12 days the team revised the space to bring Bar Otaku to life. There’s a fresh coat of paint, reconfigured seating, wooden screens between tables, and a back area that feels like a café in a little courtyard, complete with low-hanging lanterns, string lights, and anime images on the walls, all of which were commissioned from Nashville-based graffiti artists.

“There was this lightning-in-a-bottle moment with Otaku Ramen and we realized our customers were ready for more,”

Gavigan says of the change. And although it’s roots are Japanese, what you’ll find will feel strikingly familiar.

“Nashville is on the same latitude as Tokyo. So, shiso grows wild here, they love okra as much as we do,” Gavigan notes. “We really wanted to bring an honest but super approachable vibe to the space.”

She also means to do for izakaya what she did for ramen, she says, “which is to think of the concept in a very American way.”

Meaning you’ll find potato salad, crunchy green beans, and sweet potatoes, but made with items from the Japanese pantry, like sesame seeds, soy sauce, ponzu, and bonito flakes. The menu also has pictures of each dish, making it easy to navigate. Plus, being pub fare, the affordable dishes hit all the crave-able notes: salty, tangy, fatty, spicy. It’s great food to eat while drinking.

To that end, there’s a long list of Japanese beers both on draft and by the bottle. But for something stronger, try the whisky-based Itchy Fingers, or a highball.

Happy hour runs from 4 to 6 p.m. and includes deals on wine, beers, and daily drink specials.

The menu ranges from snacks and fish to fried and grilled. Start with a pickle plate (Gavigan and her kitchen team are keen on fermenting what they can), or there are fat slices of hamachi sashimi, which get a zing of heat from sliced red Fresno chiles. The tuna poke resembles one that used to be on the Little Octopus menu, this time with apple and ginger. And the potato salad gets spiffed up with cucumber and red onion

What to order

Pickle plate, $5

Tuna poke, $15

Hamachi sashimi, $13

Cold green beans, $5

Fried chicken, $6

For dishes that pack a little more heft, okonomiyaki is a nice next step: the gently fried cabbage pancake is drizzled with flavor-packed sauces and bonito flakes. Or there are the dumplings, either filled with pork or vegetables that are cooked together in a pan giving them a delicate, lacy interconnected shell that’s good for pulling off piece by piece.

From the grilled, or yakimono, section, you can mix and match individual skewers of meats and veggies, choosing from broccoli, enoki mushrooms, spicy sausage, or wagyu beef. But for more of an entrée, look toward the rice dishes, like vegetable curry or the taco rice (it gets Southernized with a pile of pimento cheese), or the fried section, which includes an addictive dish of lightly-battered fried chicken pieces served with kewpie mayo dipping sauce.

Around the room, you’ll see glimpses of a symbolic totem, the Daruma doll, which is a small, rounded statue representing the founder of Zen Buddhism, Bodhidharma. The wishing dolls encourage focusing on a goal and, once it’s achieved, moving on to the next. For Gavigan, the dolls represent more than a cultural touchpoint.

“They symbolize perseverance. Meaning, if you fall down seven times, you get back up eight. I can relate to that,” she says, reflecting on this most recent transformation. “Building a restaurant is hard. But this place feels special and wonderful and it took a lot of grit and perseverance, and our entire team, to make it that way.”

505 12thAve. S; 615-454-3946, Barotaku.com