Executive Chef Naji Berjawi Presents KOI, The Best Nikkei Cuisine Experience in Riyadh

Interview with Naji Berjawi, Executive Chef at Crowne Plaza Riyadh RDC Hotel and Convention Center

What is your overview of the hospitality and food and beverage sector in Saudi Arabia and how does KOI fit within it?

During the last two years, the hospitality sector, especially food and beverage, has been booming in Riyadh, with restaurants opening offering different experiences, different brands, and big names coming onto the market recently. So, the competition is very high and the expectation of the customer also is very high. The idea of opening KOI as a Nikkei or Japanese-Peruvian cuisine restaurant was something new on the market. KOI is the first Nikkei restaurant to open in town. We opened KOI at the end of 2020. It was a very exciting, very busy opening with lots of celebrity guests. The unique recipes and the unique experience at KOI are totally different from any other restaurants. Nikkei is a combination which came about when Japanese people moved to and were living in Peru. It combines the Peruvian ingredients with some Japanese ingredients. This cuisine is now growing very fast in the market. You can see lots of restaurants opening now going in the direction of Nikkei. We have designed the menu specific to the availability of the products in Riyadh. Riyadh has recently started opening to the world. In the beginning, there was a big challenge to finding the right products, especially the imported products for the Nikkei cuisine. We created a full menu of different exciting dishes from the salads to the appetizers. We divided the restaurant into three sections. First, we have the robata and teppanyaki section. Plus, there is a live cooking show kitchen in front of the guests. While you are sitting you can see your food as it is cooking and being grilled on the robata which is a totally different experience. Then we have the sushi bar. The sushi bar is also a live sushi bar where the chef is cutting the fresh fish, the tuna, the salmon in front of the guests and as you are sitting you can see your sushi as it is being rolled and prepared omakase. The sushi at KOI is not the same sushi as you may know it. Nikkei sushi is totally different from Japanese sushi. It has different flavors, a different style of presentation, ingredients you would not expect to find in sushi. The final section is the hot kitchen where food comes from inside the kitchen.

How is Nikkei cuisine different from fusion?

Nikkei cuisine is very simple, not complicated. There are different techniques and methods used. The food is presented family style. The concept is all about sharing plates. It is not like when you go to fine dining and you order one plate by yourself. It is a sharing concept to feel the familial experience. And when sharing plates, you can order many different plates and try them all together.

What unique dishes and specialties does KOI offer?

We have different dishes at KOI which we are so excited to present. We have our monthly promotion dishes using seasonal ingredients every month which is our Chef’s Special dish. At KOI, we have signature dishes that people always come to order. We have the Sea Bass Tiradito special which is very popular. It is a fresh sea bass fish coming from Spain. We marinate it with different ingredients and the sauce is a combination between Japanese and Peruvian flavors. When you taste it, you will taste the fish along with togarashi, aji amarillo, leche de tigre, and crispy quinoa. It is a special dish with four or five different flavors on one plate. We also have our signature dish which is the Wagyu A9 sirloin served with wild mushroom and purple potato. This dish is very popular and well liked. The Wagyu sirloin is cooked on the robata tataki style, and then served with purple potato, and the sauce is a combination between some Peruvian ingredients and some Japanese ingredients. We call it Wagyu Tataki. We are always choosing the right ingredients for our restaurant. The beef is high grade beef from Wagyu to Black Angus, but mainly, we are focused on the Wagyu beef, especially on the meat dishes. We also have the Trio of Bao Buns dish. One bao bun is made from koji chicken, another one is made from fried ebi with a special sauce, and we also have the beef ribs bao bun. So, in the trio you get seafood, chicken, and beef. Each one has a different flavor and a difference feeling. It consists of a small, homemade bao bun made by our chefs. One has sriracha mayo and the other has a bonito sauce which is made of Japanese mayonnaise, katsuobushi, soy sauce, and mirin. Along with our popular signature dishes, we also do promotions. At KOI, every day we have a Sushi Happy Hour from 5PM-8PM. Our sushi is very famous in town. It is an open sushi bar, especially for the people who would like to have something quick after working hours. Actually, we were not expecting this to become so popular. But every day the sushi happy hour is extremely popular.

At Crowne Plaza Riyadh RDC, there are a lot of events, business conferences, etc., being situated in the Digital City. Do you have a specific clientele that you are reaching out to at KOI? Is it more international, local diners, casual diners, businesspeople?

KOI is part of Crowne Plaza RDC but we always market it as a standalone restaurant. It is located within the Digital City which is a big business area and there are lots of businesspeople who like to have a quick lunch or a quick lunch meeting. For these people, we are open during lunch and we are targeting mainly the CEOs and the management of these companies. We created a specific menu during lunch for those people who might only have 30 minutes to grab something to eat fast and then head back to the office. We developed three kinds of bento boxes – one is vegetarian, one has seafood, and one has chicken or beef. These bento boxes for our business customers have worked very well. They prefer to have something with quick, small bites, some rolls, salads, appetizers, and the main course of salmon with stir fried rice or salmon with stir fried vegetables. It is a healthy, quick option that is great for businesspeople. These customers prefer to come to KOI because it is a quiet place with a nice atmosphere to get out a little bit from the office and have a nice meal. We often have corporate guests or groups of Ministers and most of the Ministries are located around us. We might have a group coming from Japan, from Indonesia, from Asia with different delegates. They always choose KOI for their lunchtime. For this kind of group, we always create specific set menus for them from our menu and from different kinds of ingredients to come up with a nice lunch and a nice experience for the client. When we have a set menu, we always focus on the starters to the appetizers to the main course to the desserts to the amuse bouche to really represent the Nikkei cuisine. We always create something different for our clients, especially for the repeat guests, such as the Ministers. We do not stick only with our set menu. This will make people excited to always to try something new, different dishes, different flavors, and have a different experience.

What is your three-to-five-year projection and goal for KOI? What do you want to achieve?

KOI just recently opened about two years ago in 2020. During this period, the menu was running very well. So, the goal for the upcoming three years is to make this restaurant one of the best restaurants in town. We are planning to not only focus on Nikkei, we want to introduce also the Asian cuisine part of KOI. There are a lot of plans for KOI during the next year also. We are planning to do different kinds of special nights during the week. Thursdays we are trying to do an open sushi bar and open sushi buffet for the people who like to have the Asian touch. Beyond the Japanese and Peruvian styles, we are planning to add some more ingredients, some more recipes, some more touches, and some more foods from Thailand, from Malaysia, from Indonesia, all the Southeast Asian countries. We are planning another night called Izakaya Night. It will be a pure Japanese night. We are now working on the menu engineering. We are planning to implement the new menu for KOI with some new dishes with more Peruvian dishes, more seafood products, different kinds of appetizers, different kinds of salads, some more touches of new ingredients from Peru. This will be implemented in January 2023. Now, we have started doing a dry run for the menu where every week we do trials and we put out new dishes, try the presentation, until we finalize the menu. The main goal is always to keep the menu updated. This is how we can keep people excited about coming to the restaurant. We always want to provide a different experience and people really enjoy it. You come, you feel the atmosphere of the restaurant, the food, the smell, the texture itself.

Do you plan to start offering in house catering and event service or home delivery in the future?

We have some repeat guests that like to have the same experience they have at the restaurant – the same room, the same tables, the same chairs – at their own house. We have put on events like this for 40 to 50 persons at villas or palaces. We bring the sushi bar and the robata to the house, even down to bringing our waiters. It is a big challenge. We also have designed a specific delivery menu. You can order through food applications like Hunger Station using the branding of KOI, the nice presentation of the boxes, and it reaches the customer like they were eating at the restaurant. From the freshness to the presentation, it is a high-end product design and packaging.

What is your inspiration? What drives you to do what you do?

It is not easy. It is a big responsibility. You have to always keep yourself on track, especially for the restaurant. In restaurants, you always need to push and always need to do something to keep it working. If you just keep the restaurant running, you will end up with no customers. So, you always have to create something new. We are always working on new dishes, monthly promotions, monthly dessert promotions, special association promotions. For example, now we are coming up to Thanksgiving and we will create a specific set menu for that. We also have the New Year and we always do a specific menu to give a different experience. All these tools we use to drive more revenue and to keep the restaurant always on top.

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