Sokyo's Chase Kojima to Open Japanese Casual Dining Restaurant Gojima

One of the biggest names in Japanese cuisine right now, Chase Kojima, has announced big plans to open a casual dining and takeaway restaurant in The Star Sydney (yes, that place but stay with us).

Kojima's new deluxe burger venture (and first ever casual dining restaurant) will be setting up shop opposite Momofuku Seiobo, although, as construction has just started, the opening is slated for November of this year. The new restaurant will be called Gojima — a play on the chef's last name, and the Japanese word for rice, gohan — and will serve up gourmet bun-less rice burgers and sides as well as Japanese beer, wine and thickshakes (weird addition but we're always down).

Having led kitchens for the iconic Nobu restaurant group for years, Kojima then nailed it with his Sokyo Ramen pop-up in the Star Cafe Court last year which ran over by five months thanks to popular demand. The San Francisco-raised dynamo has spent the last few years at the helm of some of Australia's most high profile Japanese restaurants: Sydney's Soyko and the Gold Coast's Kiyomi.

For fans of Sydney's casual fine dining trend, this is great news. Don't we all deserve to try a gourmet, bun-less rice burger made by one of the world's most celebrated Japanese cuisine chefs? Kojima thinks so.

Gojima will open later this year at The Star, in the space opposite Momofuku Seiobo.